Chamber and committees

Petitioner submission of 2 September 2021

PE1873/C - Provide hypnotherapy for the treatment of mental health, psychosomatic disorders and chronic pain

On 30/08/2021 BBC1 aired a programme called ‘Can Hypnosis fix your life’ which showed how hypnosis could resolve some serious issues, how it can work and also how it should not be done.

It is clear from the Scottish Government’s response that there are two issues here, that hypnotherapy is not regulated under legislation and a lack of research.

The reason that hypnotherapy is not regulated is that the UK Government decided that hypnotherapy is a safe modality and self-regulation should suffice. Currently there is a lot of work being carried out by the UK Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organisations (UKCHO) to identify and stipulate acceptable standards that can be accepted by the Professional Standards Agency (PSA).

Thousands of research projects have and are being carried out around the world and can easily be found on the internet e.g. Harvard University and many others. It is very clear from the Government response that they are aware of and pay lip service to Hypnotherapy but there does not appear to have been any attempt from the Government to communicate with anyone in the Hypnotherapy field or search the internet for more information. Had this been done, many clinical trials could have been undertaken.

With regard to chronic pain, a clinical trial was conducted at the beginning of last year in Derbyshire. In conjunction with local GPs, 400 patients on opioid pain medication were seen over a 6-week period. Each patient was given a 20-minute session resulting in 73% pain eliminated, 23% pain drastically reduced and only 4 % no change. When the local Health Board became aware of this they ordered it to be stopped. Consequently, the potential reduction in medication prescriptions and reduction in costs could not be measured.