I was meaning to mention as part of a pain clinic we looked at acupuncture. The most critical component seemed to be how strong the person's belief in acupuncture. Similarly the relationship between the how strong a person's belief was in the effectiveness of hypnotic pain control was a significant (but not the only) determinant of whether the person was able to control pain using hypnotic instruction. As part of my honours thesis (which I can send the results) we found a correlation between how strong the person's belief in hypnosis in controlling pain using hypnosis and actual pain control (using a standardized pain test) of .43. When we included hypnotic responsiveness the correlation was over .57.
What does this mean, those people who where highly responsive to hypnosis tended to believe in the efficacy of hypnosis to control pain. And accordingly when confronted with a situation where they had to control pain, did far better than those who were not hypnotizable or who did not belive it could control pain. An anecdote - As a graduate student in a pain control clinic, I assisted with some patients who had intractable pain or who could not, for whatever reason, use conventional anesthetics to control pain. One person who was referred to us was highly allergic to most anesthetics. We worked with her for 2 weeks prior to her cancer surgery (she had a form of cancer called lymphoma). The patient went through the surgery without any anesthetics, relying entirely on hypnotic analgesia. Hypnotic pain control has been more rigorously tested than most anesthetics. The American Obstetrics and the American Dental Societies both recognize hypnotic analgeisia as a valid form of non-narcotic pain control because of the validation process it has gone through. Healing touch however is still considered to be space cadet bs. larry On 7/16/05, Jim Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Dana [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2005 12:29 PM > > To: CF-Community > > Subject: Re: Prayers do not influence recovery from heart > > cathereterization > > > > what's clinically significant to you? Personally, 65% more likely to > > be alive would look pretty good to me ... > > > > http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2 > > 005-07-15T172140Z_01_B232717_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-HEALING-TOUCH-DC.XML > > I think in this case the meaning is that the effects are probably from side > effects of the therapy (placebo effect, relaxation, etc) and not specific to > the therapy itself. > > Many "therapies" (therapeutic touch, hypnotism, massage, acupuncture, > reflexology and many others) have similar effects when tested. Do all of > these (each with a completely different practitioner explanation of their > effectiveness) do the same things in completely ways? Or do each tap into > some common source of benefit (such as the placebo effect)? > > In any case I think that's what's meant by "statistically significant but > not clinically significant". > > Jim Davis > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:165014 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
