"A Surprise Medical Solution - Hypnosis" - Sumathi Reddy
Hypnotherapy – when patients enter a trance-like state using relaxation and visual images – is often associated with alternative medicine. But increasingly medical centers are using it to treat digestive conditions like acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome and ulcerative colitis. Studies have shown hypnotherapy is effective in reducing symptoms associated with these gastrointestinal disorders. Insurance companies usually cover the treatments. Laurie Keefer, PhD, works at the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center at Mount Sinai. There she does hypnotherapy for patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, diseases caused by inflammation of the intestines. The treatment usually consists of about seven sessions over three months, with home practice in between. Studies have found the effects can last more than a year and work in more than half of patients.
-Laurie Keefer, PhD, Associate Professor, Medicine, Gastroenterology, Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai