Mood changes after self-hypnosis and Johrei prior to exams

Before course examinations, 48 university students were randomized to four weeks of training in self-hypnosis, a Japanese method for enhancing well-being, Johrei, or to a control procedure shown to produce self-reported relaxation and consisting of EEG-biofeedback with false feedback. Participants were examined with mood scales, EEG and immune parameters on three occasions: prior to training, after the month of training, and again two to three months later. The mood results are reported here. Although all participants reported an increase in negative mood with exams, especially an increase in tension, both self-hypnosis and Johrei buffered the effects of exam stress relative to the control group on depression, confusion and loss of vigour. These were extended with Johrei to include self-rated anxiety, depression and anger, while self-hypnosis evinced advantages over Johrei on diary reports of mood post-training. The advantages immediately following training for self-hypnosis and Johrei over the control relaxation procedure were to a large extent sustained at follow-up, by which time home practice had reduced. Advantages were unrelated to expectations about outcome before training although beliefs after training were related to absorption abilities. Johrei appears a promising procedure for maintaining equilibrium of mood in the face of stress, despite the scepticism of the participants

Hypnotizability and immunological response to psychological intervention in HIV

Objective: This pilot study related hypnotizability to changes in HIV immune blood markers after two psychological interventions. Design: The mean of two blood assays prior to intervention was compared to the results of the blood assay after the intervention. Intervention: A course of four weekly 2-hour training sessions coupled with daily self-hypnosis practice was given to 13 participants with diagnosed HIV and for a further participants a similar course was given in a Japanese healing method called Johrei (a total of 22 participants). All were naïve to anti-retroviral medication. Main outcome measures: CD4+ T cell counts, viral load of the HIV virus in blood. Results: When highly hypnotizable subjects were compared to those of lower hypnotizability in a repeated measures analysis, their CD4+ t-lymphocyte counts were significantly higher (p = 0.007). This was achieved by the highly hynotizable subjects non-significantly raising their CD4+ counts while the CD4+ counts of the less hynotizable subjects declined significantly (mean change = −79.4 p = 0.006). The differences in CD4+ T cell % of lymphocytes and the viral loads did not differ Conclusions: This pilot study indicates that hypnotizability may predict immunological response to psychological interventions in HIV

Individual differences in personality, immunology and mood in patients undergoing self-hypnosis training for the successful treatment of a chronic viral illness, HSV-2

Individual differences in personality, in particular cognitive activation, withdrawal and hypnotic susceptibility were examined in a study of self-hypnosis training in patients with chronic and severe herpes simplex virus (HSV-2), genital herpes, along with depression, anxiety and activation ratings. Immune parameters were assayed before and after the six-week training. Self-hypnosis almost halved recurrence rate, benefiting 65% of the patients. Furthermore clinical responders demonstrated an increase in natural killer cell (NKC) cytotoxicity of herpes infected cells as well as up-regulation of nonspecific immune parameters. In replication of a student exam stress study (Gruzelier, Smith, Nagy and Henderson, 2001a) cognitive activation was positively associated with immune function; with improvement in herpes recurrence, improvements in specific NKC cytotoxicity, baseline functional NKC activity and energy ratings, and was unrelated to frequency of practice. No other measure of personality or affect was associated with immune system up-regulation and improvements in health. Depression and, to a lesser extent, anxiety improved independently of herpes outcome. Depression and/or anxiety at baseline were positively associated with withdrawal, particularly the affective aspects, and neuroticism, which were associated with immune down-regulation seen in NKC counts and NKC functional activity at baseline. Hypnotizability was associated positively with aspects of immune system up-regulation and negatively with clinical depression. Immune system up-regulation in clinical responders correlated positively with frequency of self-hypnosis practice. This is possibly the first evidence for the efficacy of self-hypnosis training for a chronic medical illness. Evidence (1) of the benefits to health and (2) of the viral specificity of the immune changes, here in the form of increased cytotoxicity of NKC for cells infected with the herpes virus, gives credence to the value of a psychological intervention for immunity; evidence for which is scarce in the field of psychoneuroimmunology. The predictive ability of cognitive activation for response to hypnotherapy is in keeping with the preferential effects on both immune parameters and health of hypnosis instructions which require the generation of dynamic imagery in contrast to instructions of passive relaxation imagery (Gruzelier, Levy, Williams and Henderson, 2001b)