IBS
IBS
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
Clinical Hypnotherapy is one of the best known and most widely used treatments for IBS, and can offer sufferers a drug-free solution to their symptoms of diarrhoea, constipation, stomach pain and bloating.
There are now many hundreds of hypnotherapists who have been trained in gut-directed hypnotherapy for IBS, which takes the general techniques of hypnotherapy and applies them directly to the abdominal pain and digestive symptoms which IBS sufferers struggle with. This type of hypnotherapy has been clinically tested and found to be very helpful.
One of the first studies of hypnotherapy for IBS was conducted by Dr Peter Whorwell, a leading expert on IBS and hypnotherapy in the UK. A trial he conducted in the 1980s found that a group of IBS sufferers who had failed to respond to other treatments showed dramatic improvements when treated with gut-directed hypnotherapy. Since then, other therapists have shown similar results.
How successful is hypnotherapy in clinical studies?
There have been a range of clinical studies which show that hypnotherapy can help IBS.
The pioneer for this kind of treatment was Dr Peter Whorwell, a UK doctor who published his first study in the journal The Lancet in 1984. The placebo-controlled study consisted of 15 IBS patients who received seven hypnotherapy sessions, and 15 patients who received seven sessions of psychotherapy and placebo pills.
The patients who received psychotherapy showed a small improvement in their abdominal pain and general well-being, but not in their typical IBS symptoms such as diarrhea and constipation. The patients who had received hypnotherapy showed a major improvement in all main symptoms, and remained well during the three-month period of follow-up research.
Conclusion: Hypnotherapy can significantly improve all main symptoms of IBS.
Hypnotherapy as a Intervention
Hypnotherapy is one of the best known and most widely used interventions for IBS, and offers sufferers a drug-free solution to their symptoms of diarrhea, constipation, stomach pain and bloating.