For many decades, if not centuries, mankind has attempted to treat psychological disorders with a wild array of different treatment methods, correlating with an equally wild array of successes. 

These treatments have evolved from the crude techniques of the past, such as medieval torture methods and the removal of brain tissue through lobotomy, to the more modern approaches that come in different shapes; ranging from the various forms of psychotherapy consisting of patient-therapist interactions, to biomedical therapies and nootropics that directly influence a patient's nervous system.

One form of therapy has harnessed the power of the elevated suggestible state induced by hypnosis to relieve patients of their psychological ailments. 

This therapy-form, named hypnotherapy, has been practiced by hypnotherapists for over 150 years and has been gaining recognition as a useful treatment method for various disorders. 

However, in similar fashion to the on-going debate on what really constitutes hypnosis, there is no generally accepted consensus about the effectiveness of hypnotherapy, and only in the past three decades have serious attempts been made to assess the results of hypnosis used for therapeutic purposes. 

This short article will therefore analyze the findings of literature discussing the effectiveness of hypnosis in order to draw conclusions on the utilization of hypnosis as a therapeutic tool.

In order to assess the quality of hypnosis as a therapeutic tool, the entire spectrum of therapeutic purposes has to be analyzed, something which has been attempted by Flammer & Bongartz, who have examined the 444 studies published up to 2002 that investigated the effectiveness of hypnosis. 

Selected from these 444 studies were 57 studies that conformed to the criteria of being both randomized and controlled. 

Their results indicate that hypnotherapy has a medium efficacy for ICD-10 codable disorders, including somatic complaints, smoking cessation and anxiety, with 'an average effect size of d = 0.63', and a low efficacy when used in support of medical procedures, in which in effects size of d=0.44 was found.

However, Flammer & Bongartz also report several limitations of their research, including the fact that a great number of psychological disorders for which hypnotherapy is utilized could not be represented in their meta-analysis due to the absence of randomized controlled studies assessing their efficacy.

Based on the results of this variety of studies assessing the effectiveness of hypnotherapy in different therapeutic applications, it seems that hypnosis does indeed have the potential to successfully enhance or replace conventional treatments. 

Nonetheless, the effectiveness of hypnotherapy is undetermined for a 'considerable part of the spectrum of psychotherapeutic practice', which is the result of a gap between therapeutic practice and clinical research. 

More clinical studies and research will thus have to be conducted in order to broaden the spectrum of disorders for which it can be stated that hypnosis is of value as a therapeutic intervention.

Moreover, more research on the scientific foundations of hypnosis, utilizing neuroimaging tools for example, is required to empirically validate its efficacy, as, despite hypnotherapy's promising potential, 'without a sounds scientific basis, hypnosis might go the way of phrenology'.

(Source: EzineArticles)