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Hypnosis
Can
Help Control Pain Among Women with Metastatic Breast
Cancer
Hypnosis can help alleviate the pain and suffering
experienced by women being
treated for breast cancer, according to a study by
a University at
Buffalo School of Social Work professor.
The randomized trial measured pain and suffering, frequency
of pain and degree
of constant pain among 124 women with metastatic
breast cancer, according
to Lisa D. Butler, associate professor in UB's School of
Social Work, a faculty
member in the Buffalo Center for Social Research and
first author of the
study.
Researchers recorded levels of pain at four-month intervals
for a year. Women
who were assigned to the treatment group received
group psychotherapy, as
well as instruction and practice in hypnosis to moderate
their pain symptoms.
They reported "significantly less increase in the
intensity of pain
and suffering over time," compared with a control group, who
did not
receive the group psychotherapy intervention.
"The results of this study suggest that the experience of
pain and
suffering for patients with metastatic breast cancer
can be successfully
reduced with an intervention that includes hypnosis in a
group therapy setting,"
according to Butler. "These results augment the
growing literature supporting
the use of hypnosis as an adjunctive treatment for medical
patients
experiencing pain."
The researchers also found that, within the treatment group,
those patients who
could be hypnotized more easily - a group the
researchers said
demonstrated "high hypnotizability" - reported
greater benefits
from hypnosis. These patients used hypnosis
more overall, including
outside of the group sessions, and in some cases used it to
address other
symptoms related to their cancer.
"These results suggest that although hypnosis is not at
present standard
practice for treating a wide range of symptoms that
trouble cancer
patients, it is worth examining that potential," Butler
says.
"Together, these findings suggest that there may be a
number of
benefits to the use of hypnosis in cancer care including,
but not necessarily
limited to, its more traditional application for
pain control."
Butler joined the UB faculty in January 2009, after doing
research at Stanford
University's School of Medicine. She was hired at UB to
strengthen the
university's research focus on "extreme events" as part of
the UB 2020
strategic planning initiative. She recently published
a nationally
recognized study on how some people living through an
extremely traumatic
event have the ability to recover or even grow in personal
and interpersonal
functioning.
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