Good Question
Is Hypnosis Real?
What research says about how it works in the brain — and the many conditions it may be useful for
Welcome to my new column for Elemental. Each Tuesday, I’ll attempt to answer a thought-provoking health question with the help of one or two experts. If you’d like to suggest a topic, please email me at goodhealthquestion@gmail.com.
Hypnosis has long struggled with branding issues. For many, the term still conjures visions of swinging pocket watches and charlatans incanting, “Look into my eyes.” (No thank you.)
Jessie Kittle wants to dispel all those old associations and misconceptions. “The idea that you can take over someone’s brain and run them around like a puppet against their will — that doesn’t happen,” says Kittle, who is a doctor and a clinical assistant professor of medicine, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.
Kittle has published several papers on hypnosis. When I spoke with her, she told me that she gets asked all the time whether hypnosis is real. During her early days as a hospital physician, she wondered this herself. To find the answer, she started digging through the published scholarship. “I found this ridiculous amount of medical literature going back decades and all of these clinical…
