Psychotherapy Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Psychotherapy, including details on psychiatry, psychoanalysis, methods, outcomes.

Hypnosis delivered through immersive virtual reality for burn pain: A clinical case series.

Patterson DR, Wiechman SA, Jensen M, Sharar SR

University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA. davepatt@u.washington.edu

This study is the first to use virtual-reality technology on a series of clinical patients to make hypnotic analgesia less effortful for patients and to increase the efficiency of hypnosis by eliminating the need for the presence of a trained clinician. This technologically based hypnotic induction was used to deliver hypnotic analgesia to burn-injury patients undergoing painful wound-care procedures. Pre- and postprocedure measures were collected on 13 patients with burn injuries across 3 days. In an uncontrolled series of cases, there was a decrease in reported pain and anxiety, and the need for opioid medication was cut in half. The results support additional research on the utility and efficacy of hypnotic analgesia provided by virtual reality hypnosis.

Published 3 April 2006 in Int J Clin Exp Hypn, 54(2): 130-42.
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