At a time when our nation is struggling with widespread, lethal abuse of drugs developed to relieve severe pain, Eric Willmarth, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Grand Rapids, Michigan, thinks he has found a better way. He treats pain with hypnosis.
He works exclusively in pain management. "Well, as exclusive as you can get," says Willmarth, president-elect of Div. 30 (Society of Psychological Hypnosis); a 2019 APA fellow; and the owner of Michigan Behavioral Consultantsopens in new window, which has 13 clinics in the western part of the state. "When you're dealing with pain, you're also going to have depression and anxiety."
Many of Willmarth's clients live with chronic pain, from illness or the aftermath of an accident, "pain that goes on for years and years. It is quite a psychological battle to deal with that," he says.
Most of the research done on hypnosis has focused on its ability to relieve pain. Only about 10% of the populationopens in new window is "highly hypnotizable," but a meta-analysis done in 2000 found that hypnosis relieved pain in about three-quarters of study participants.
Willmarth, who started out in college as a music major, compares hypnotizability to musical talent: Some people are better at it than others, but nearly everybody can be taught, to some extent. And, as with most things, he says, practicing improves performance. In addition, biofeedback, a different mind-body approach he uses in his practice, can also block pain, and may work well for people who don't respond well to hypnosis, Willmarth says. He calls hypnosis and biofeedback the "twin pillars" of self-regulation.
Investigators have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify the parts of the brain that hypnosis activates, but they still can't say precisely what happens during the characteristic experiences of hypnosis — absorption, or highly focused attention; dissociation; compartmentalization of experience; and suggestibility, "the nonjudgmental behavioral responsiveness to instructions from others," as described in a studyopens in new window by a team of researchers based at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
That 2016 investigation found distinctive activity in three particular areas of the brains of highly hypnotizable people. The authorsopens in new window, including David Spiegel, MDopens in new window, said that this finding suggests it might be possible to target those areas of the brain to make the pain-relieving effects of hypnosis available to more people.
These studies have been very exciting for people working with hypnosis, Willmarth says. One of the things he likes about it is that it empowers patients, which he says is the opposite of what happens when people take drugs for pain. "Pain is a perception," he says. "You can teach people to alter that perception, to do that themselves, rather than depending on medication to do it." Some patients are stunned at how good they feel after a session, he says.
Hypnosis emerged as a medical therapy in the West in the late 1700s. Franz Anton Mesmer, a German doctor dissatisfied with bloodletting and other treatments of the time, attempted to channel a magnetic power he thought was inherent in people to treat disease. Mesmer was vilified in his own time, but he inspired other clinicians to experiment with tapping the mind-body connection to make their patients feel better. Mesmer and his disciples hit on a number of the principles of psychology, and methodologies of psychotherapy, in their investigations.
Hypnosis developed to the point where it was widely used for pain relief, even for surgery and childbirth, until the introduction of chemical anesthesia in the 1840s.
Then in 1894, "Trilby," a popular book by George du Maurier set in Paris in the 1850s, introduced a sinister character named Svengali, who used hypnosis to control and exploit his protégé, Trilby.
Willmarth says, "'Trilby' introduced all the stereotypes about hypnosis that Hollywood later picked up," in movies like "The Manchurian Candidate," "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" and "Get Out." Those innumerable stories depict hypnosis as a dangerous manipulation that can, in the hands of unscrupulous practitioners, disable an individual 's will.
Hypnosis can be misused, Willmarth says; a practitioner needs solid training and an ethical base. Sexual abuse has occurred during hypnosis. It's also possible to alter someone's memories with suggestion.
"That's true with or without hypnosis. You have to be careful about memory," he says.
But hypnosis can focus memories, too. In 1976, after a bus carrying 26 children was kidnapped for ransom in Chowchilla, California, William Kroger, MDopens in new window, one of the modern pioneers in the use of hypnosis for painless surgery, hypnotized the bus driver, who was then able to recall the license plate of the car that had blocked the bus's path before the kidnapping. Hypnosis has been used in other crime investigations as well.
Kroger, Milton Erickson, MDopens in new window, Herbert Spiegel, MDopens in new window, and Michael Yapko, PhD,opens in new window are among the researchers and clinicians who, Willmarth says, have worked to dispel myths and create a scientific basis for the practice of hypnosis.
Willmarth has lived in western Michigan for most of his life. He was intrigued with hypnosis from the moment he first saw a stage hypnotist from Chicago demonstrate its practice at an assembly at his high school. Willmarth knew all the students who had volunteered to participate; he knew they weren't shills.
"I thought it was remarkable, what he could do," Willmarth says.
After getting an undergraduate degree from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, and a master's degree in clinical psychology from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Willmarth worked as a therapist for 20 years in health care settings before going to graduate school to get a PhD in clinical psychology from the Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. "Hypnosis was the centerpiece of my graduate studies," he says. His dissertation was on preventing depression with hypnosis, and its effects on pain.
Willmarth teaches hypnosis and co-chairs the department of psychophysiology, the science behind the mind-body connection, at Saybrook University,opens in new window based in Pasadena, California, which has a hybrid in-person/online teaching platform. He is a fellow and member of both the American Society of Clinical Hypnosisopens in new window and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosisopens in new window. Willmarth has been videotaping interviewsopens in new window with leading figures in the hypnosis field, from 26 countries, for more than 20 years. This will be his second term as Div. 30 president.
A lifelong musician who sings in his church choir, Willmarth uses music in his practice, too, because it's so captivating.
"Pain requires attention," he says. "We want patients to have their minds on other things."
