HYPNOTHERAPY has been around since Scottish neurosurgeon James Braid coined the term in the 1840s. About that time, British surgeon James Esdaile performed hundreds of abdominal and scrotal operations in India, using hypnosis as the only anaesthetic. It was unfortunate timing that he presented his papers on hypnosis to London’s Royal Society just as chemical anaesthetics were being discovered; the technique was not accepted by the medical establishment.
Today, although increasing numbers of people are consulting private practitioners, the lack of research into hypnotherapy means that it remains on the fringes of medicine. In a 2000 report on complementary and…
