From Stefan Badham, Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK
Reading Helen Thomson’s interesting and amusing article on hypnosis, I wondered if hypnotists aren’t taken seriously because, historically, they claimed to be using only their minds to do it (9 November, p 34). As Thomson reports, anaesthetist Aurore Marcou uses local anaesthetics and mild sedation in modern, medical-based hypnosis, making the hypnotist one part of the process rather than the whole process itself.
