Clinical Hypnosis as a Complementary Therapy in Modern Healthcare

A special issue of Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 18 June 2026 | Viewed by 17

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Complementary and Integrative Medicine Service, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer 5265601, Israel
Interests: complementary medicine; complementary & alternative medicine; acupuncture; infection
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Hypnosis, a modified state of consciousness, has been employed for the treatment of medical conditions since the late 1700s. It was only centuries later on, in 1958, when the American Medical Association (AMA) recognized medical hypnosis as a valuable treatment modality, followed by the British Medical Association in 1995, and finally the NIH consensus conference (published in 1996), which concluded that several behavioral and relaxation interventions may be effective in the treatment of chronic pain and insomnia, and there is strong evidence for the use of hypnosis in alleviating pain associated with cancer. Since then, many randomized controlled trials have supported the effectiveness of hypnosis in a variety of medical conditions, such as dermatology, gastroenterology, obstetrics and gynecology, and oncology, in preoperative care, during invasive medical procedures, etc.   

The acceptance of hypnosis by the medical community has, however, been limited, partly due to the misconceptions and myths associated with this treatment modality and a lack of regulation of therapists, but mainly due to insufficient knowledge regarding the scientific basis behind medical hypnosis.

During recent years, however, the understanding of the role of cortical processing in chronic pain has led to the concept of neuromodulatory interventions in pain conditions. Following this, hypnosis has emerged as a valuable clinical tool in the treatment of pain. Hypnosis has been demonstrated to affect processes involved in the perception of pain, acting differentially on sensory and affective components of pain. In addition, neuroimaging studies are shedding more light on brain regions and brain networks that are modulated during hypnosis.

There is also some evidence that hypnosis may reduce the inflammatory response and thus be an adjunct to standard medical treatment.

We are pleased to invite you to submit original research articles, short reports, and reviews that study the experimental and clinical effects of hypnosis in modern health care, especially its multifactorial effect on pain and inflammation.

I/We look forward to hearing from you.   

Dr. Dorit Gamus
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • hypnosis
  • pain
  • autonomic nervous system
  • inflammation
  • neurophysiology

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