Hypnotherapy has been studied for decades and is recognised within mainstream psychology. The American Medical Association’s Council on Mental Health endorsed hypnosis as a medical technique in 1958, though the AMA rescinded its pre-1958 policy positions in 1987 and no longer maintains a formal position on it. The American Psychological Association continues to recognise the field through Division 30, the Society of Psychological Hypnosis, one of its established divisions. In 1996, a National Institutes of Health Technology Assessment Panel reviewed the evidence and found strong support for hypnosis in alleviating pain associated with cancer, alongside evidence for relaxation techniques in chronic pain more broadly.
Research has examined hypnotherapy across a range of conditions. A 2021 randomised, rater-blind controlled trial published in the Journal of Affective Disorders compared hypnotherapy with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for mild to moderate depression, and found hypnotherapy was not inferior to CBT after six months of treatment — meaning it performed comparably to the established standard.
For anxiety, a 2019 meta-analysis in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis reviewed 17 trials and found participants receiving hypnosis reduced anxiety more than roughly 79% of control participants at the end of treatment. The effect was stronger when hypnosis was combined with other psychological interventions than when used alone.
Some of the strongest evidence concerns irritable bowel syndrome. Gut-directed hypnotherapy is recommended as a second-line treatment option in current European and North American gastroenterology guidelines, and a 2025 systematic review of twelve studies covering 1,158 patients found it may improve overall IBS symptoms, particularly pain.
For sleep, a 2018 systematic review in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine concluded that hypnosis for sleep problems is a promising treatment that merits further investigation, with a low incidence of adverse events reported.
Evidence is not uniform across every application. For smoking cessation, the current Cochrane review found no clear evidence that hypnotherapy is better than other approaches, and rated the available evidence as low to very low certainty. For weight management, results are mixed: one 1996 meta-analysis reported greater weight loss when hypnosis was added to cognitive-behavioural treatment, while a reappraisal published the same year corrected calculation errors in the earlier work and found a much smaller effect. We think it is more useful to tell you this openly than to present hypnotherapy as equally proven for everything.
Hypnotherapy has a long history, traceable over 200 years, and continues to be an active area of clinical research. A 2024 review summarising twenty years of meta-analytic evidence offers a broad overview for readers who want to explore the research further.
This information is provided for general educational purposes and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making medical decisions.
References
NIH Technology Assessment Panel. Integration of Behavioral and Relaxation Approaches into the Treatment of Chronic Pain and Insomnia. JAMA. 1996;276(4):313–318. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/vol/276/pg/313
Stiegler JR, Zeep C, Batra A, et al. Efficacy of hypnotherapy compared to cognitive behavioral therapy for mild to moderate depression. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2021. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032721002032
Valentine KE, Milling LS, Clark LJ, Moriarty CL. The Efficacy of Hypnosis as a Treatment for Anxiety: A Meta-Analysis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 2019;67(3):336–363. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207144.2019.1613863
Adler J, et al. Gut-Directed Hypnotherapy for Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Neurogastroenterology & Motility. 2025. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nmo.70037
Chamine I, Atchley R, Oken BS. Hypnosis Intervention Effects on Sleep Outcomes: A Systematic Review. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. 2018;14(2):271–283. https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.6952
Barnes J, McRobbie H, Dong CY, Walker N, Hartmann-Boyce J. Hypnotherapy for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2019. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001008.pub3/full
Kirsch I. Hypnotic enhancement of cognitive-behavioral weight loss treatments — another meta-reanalysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1996;64(3):517–519. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8698945/
Allison DB, Faith MS. Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy for obesity: a meta-analytic reappraisal. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1996. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8698944/
American Psychological Association, Division 30 — Society of Psychological Hypnosis. https://www.apa.org/about/division/div30
Rosendahl J, et al. Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective. 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10807512/