Does Hypnosis Really Work? The Research Says It's Time to Take It Seriously
- Anna Carroll
- Jun 2
- 4 min read
It's winter in Australia, and in winter us farmers do bonfires. Yes, it took me years and some serious belief-shedding to be able to call myself that. But that's a story for another post.
In conversations while staring at the beautiful flames, a few questions arise: is hypnosis even real? Does it really work? Depending on my mood and the audience, I explain how and why it is. Sometimes at length. Sometimes not.
The shortest, funniest answer I've ever given came at the end of a long night. I'll get to it. But first, the science, because the science has become impossible to ignore.
Does Hypnosis Really Work? Here's What the Research Shows
For a long time, hypnosis has had a reputation problem.
Which is a strange thing to say about a practice the Celts and Egyptians were using for healing thousands of years ago. It survived millennia, then got undone by a man in a top hat and a pocket watch.
But something is shifting in the research community, and it's worth paying attention to, especially if you're a woman navigating pain, anxiety, or a body that feels increasingly hard to live in.
Researchers have been running clinical trials on hypnosis for decades. What's changing now is the quality and volume of that evidence, combined with brain-imaging technology that lets scientists actually watch what happens inside the brain during hypnosis.
Here's what they're finding.
During hypnosis, activity increases in the central executive network, the part of the brain responsible for regulating attention and focus. At the same time, this network starts communicating more with the insula, which processes signals from the body and plays a central role in how we perceive threat, pain, and discomfort.
In short: the thinking, regulating part of your brain gets better at overriding the alarm signals your body is sending. Before you say that's only placebo - no, that's an actual, measurable neurological change.
Pain, IBS, anxiety, depression
The most robust evidence so far is around pain and gut issues, which, given that women are disproportionately affected by both, is worth knowing.
A study of 1,000 people with hard-to-treat irritable bowel syndrome found that 67% reported a significant reduction in abdominal pain after hypnotherapy. Out of around 30 clinical trials on hypnosis and IBS, most showed meaningful improvement.
On the mental health side, a 2021 meta-analysis found that adding hypnosis to cognitive behavioural therapy improved outcomes for 66% of patients dealing with depression, pain, or obesity. A Belgian government scientific advisory body concluded that hypnosis makes standard treatments for anxiety and depression more effective, not instead of them, but alongside them.
French hospitals have been using hypnosis alongside anaesthesia since 2015, across all 30 university hospitals.
It is also being used in surgery. French hospitals have been using hypnosis alongside anaesthesia since 2015, across all 30 university hospitals. Patients used less morphine. Operations took less time and recovery was smoother.
Closer to home, a child health nurse mentioned that Perth hospitals use hypnosis in paediatric operations to reduce the amount of anaesthesia given to children. It is not a fringe experiment. It is already happening in mainstream hospital settings, including here in Western Australia.
Why haven't you heard more about this?
Partly because hypnosis is hard to monetise. There's no pill. No patent. No pharmaceutical company funding large-scale trials or lobbying for it to become standard of care.
As one researcher put it: if hypnosis were a drug, it would be standard of care. But it isn't a drug, so the financial incentives that typically drive medical adoption simply don't exist.
There's also a regulation problem. In most countries, anyone can call themselves a hypnotist. That's made it easy to lump legitimate clinical hypnotherapy in with charlatanism, and easy for the medical establishment to keep its distance.
What this means for you
If you're managing chronic pain, anxiety, IBS, or the emotional weight of perimenopause and midlife, and you've been told there's not much else to try, hypnosis is worth taking seriously.
Not the stage version. Clinical hypnotherapy, delivered by a trained and accredited
practitioner, works with the brain's existing capacity to regulate what you feel and how you interpret it.
Back to the bonfire
Someone asks: is hypnosis even real?
Here's what I ask them in return:
Have you ever looked at adult content, a magazine, a video, and felt something? Physically, in your body.
Most people say yes.
So I ask: how? That person wasn't there. Nothing was happening to you in reality. And yet your mind produced a response, and your body followed.
That is exactly how hypnosis works. Your mind responds to what it imagines. Your body responds to your mind. And what hypnotherapy does, what the clinical evidence increasingly supports, is use that same mechanism, deliberately and precisely, to change a response that isn't serving you.
I mean, there is more to it. But that is the black and white explanation. It's not magic. It's not a party trick. It's your brain doing what it already does. Just pointed in a better direction.
