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Experimental Aspects of Pain Control Through Hypnosis

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Psychological Influences and Illness
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Abstract

The claim for the reduction of pain through hypnosis goes back in England for at least 150 years, but the scientific status of the findings has been repeatedly a source of controversy. I do not wish to recount this history, but instead to review a series of studies that were performed over the past 15 years in a laboratory that I directed within the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. I shall review first the studies that were done with experimentally produced pain in normally healthy college and university students. Then, in order to close the gap between the laboratory and the clinic, I shall report the results of some studies in children who suffered pain associated with the treatment of their cancer.

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References

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© 1984 The Royal Society of Medicine

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Hilgard, E.R. (1984). Experimental Aspects of Pain Control Through Hypnosis. In: Waxman, D. (eds) Psychological Influences and Illness. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06686-5_1

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