Hypnotic Enhancement of Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions for Pain: An Analogue Treatment Study

Recent meta-analyses have shown that adding hypnosis enhances the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. This hypnotic enhancement effect was evaluated in the analogue treatment of pain. Individuals scoring in the high ( n = 135) and low ( n = 150) ranges of hypnotic suggestibility were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 conditions: Stress Inoculation Training, the same treatment provided hypnotically, nonhypnotic analgesia suggestions, hypnotic analgesia suggestions, a hypnotic induction treatment, or a control condition. The 5 analogue treatments reduced experimental pain more than the control condition, but were not different from one another. Under circumstances optimized to detect an enhancement effect, neither Stress Inoculation Training nor analgesia suggestions produced more relief when delivered in a hypnotic context than identical treatments provided nonhypnotically.