MEDICAL HYPNOSIS
A Radio Master's Project in Three Part

By Benjamin Shaw
© 2004

Professor Dinges Advisor

Section One: Hypnosis in Surgery

INTRO
The word hypnosis conjures up images of a man with a pocket watch, slowly counting backwards. This mysterious technique for reaching the unconscious mind has been practiced for hundreds of years and was recognized by the American Medical Association in 1958. But historically, hypnosis has been relegated to the fringes of mainstream medicine.

Doctors and patients alike are beginning to put more emphasis on the relationship between the mind and body. And hypnosis is quietly being used by a growing number of medical specialists. In the first of a three part series, Benjamin Shaw reports that doctors in some of the country's leading hospitals are studying the use of hypnosis during surgery.

TAPE
DOCUMENTARY SOUND: Beeping of machine in background, we hear Dr. Lang enter the ER and someone say "Lang's here"

NARRATION
On the third floor of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, radiologist Elvira Lang preps her staff for what she expects will be a difficult procedure.

She will put an access port into a patient's chest to simplify future blood work. This means threading a catheter through the neck down into a vein near the heart.

TAPE
LANG: Usually to do this procedure you already need to have some vein anywhere in the body where you can put access in, but he even doesn't have that.

NARRATION
But Dr. Lang is confident the procedure will be successful, in part because the patient will be using hypnosis. She says hypnosis will not only lower the patient's anxiety level, but stabilize his blood pressure and heart rate.

TAPE (sound of beeping out under this)
Lang: The other thing with the hypnosis is that patients remain hymodynamically much more stable. I don't know why, but it's just the way it is. So if I know I have a difficult case I do it just for that.

NARRATION
The patient will receive local anesthesia, but will remain conscious throughout the procedure. Clinical trials specialist Noami Halsey works with Dr. Lang. She guides patients into and out of a hypnotic trance while Dr. Lang focuses on the procedure.

Halsey says it is important to help patients understand hypnosis.

TAPE
HALSEY: So, you know, we really try to explain it to them, as I said, as if you're reading a book or watching a movie or you know, when you're driving home from work and you just kind of don't even notice how you got there you just go on auto pilot. You know, it's that same sort of experience. Just so they know it's not mind control, it's not: "I'm going to make you squawk like a chicken and cut me a big check," or anything. It's just helping you to imagine yourself in a better place. It's all the patient. You can't force someone to be hypnotized. I can't make you be relaxed. But, hopefully I can help you get to a place where you can be more comfortable.

TAPE (Beeping up as this starts)
HALSEY: So now they're just setting up. They want to put a blood pressure monitor on him, they want to monitor his oxygen saturation and things like that. They'll get him to lay down and as soon as he lays down I'll go in because he seems pretty anxious.

NARRATION (Beeping up under Narration)
Halsey sits at the patient's side, holds his hand, and speaks to him from a hypnotic script developed for use during procedures.

TAPE
DOC SOUND: (Halsey reading script) Now, what I want you to do is show you how you can use your imagination to enter a state of focused concentration… (Continues under the following)

NARRATION
The patient, while anxious, is able to relax enough for Dr. Lang to find a vein and start the procedure. Halsey uses imagery techniques to help the patient overcome pain and anxiety.

TAPE
HALSEY: Maybe you could rub your fingers together and really focus on the sensation of your fingers. I mean, and of course, if the imagery is not working for the patient, nothings working for the patient they can always ask for medication, I mean that's always available to them.

TAPE
DOC SOUND: Now I want you to imagine that your floating somewhere safe and comfortable. (down under Halsey speaking)

TAPE
HALSEY: The actual script that we use is basically two pages. So if you just read straight through that, no it wouldn't last the whole procedure. But all you have to do is sort of reinforce it.

TAPE
DOC SOUND: (continuation of documentary sound from above)
HALSEY: Where do you see yourself?
PATIENT: Sitting in a Chair.
HALSEY: Good. (fade-out under next Narration)

NARRATION
Last Year, thirty-seven-year-old Carmen Lopez felt a pain in her left breast. A mammogram showed a lump and a biopsy was scheduled. On the day of the procedure, she was quite anxious. So, when Dr. Lang offered her the option of using hypnosis she took it. Halsey led her into a trance during the biopsy.

TAPE
LOPEZ: She held my hand and she said to me "Carmen what particular place would you like to be at this time?" I wanted to picture myself being at the beach. She was practically taking me there step by step. It totally took my mind off what the doctor was actually doing on the table. It was amazing it was like being so relaxed. Hardly any pain, there was some kind of discomfort here and there, but no pain.

TAPE
DOC SOUND: (Dr. Baker's tape) "You feel relaxed and calm, feeling very, very good. You know you are gaining control over your mind and body, and this control will help you come through surgery in excellent condition…(Down under narration)

NARRATION
Gastroenterologist Robert Baker has recorded an audio tape he sells with his book "Successful Surgery: A Doctor's Mind Body Guide." Baker says hypnotic suggestions can be very effective in surgery, even when patients are given general anesthesia. He says with hypnosis people can reduce blood loss during operations.

TAPE
BAKER: One might think, "That's absurd. How could words affect blood flow in the body?" And the answer is if you have ever blushed there is a case of an emotion and words causing the blood vessels of the face to dilate and open up.

NARRATION
Heart surgeon Mamet Oz directs the Cardiovascular Institute at The Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. His office overlooks the Hudson River… and on a bright January day he catches a quick lunch at his desk and talks about the connection between heart disease, depression and hypnosis.

TAPE
OZ: In heart surgery we were interested in hypnosis because we've got pretty good data now supporting the role of the mind in recovery after heart surgery. In particular, we've identified the fact that depression is linked to death, not just not feeling well, but actually to death after heart attacks.

NARRATION
Dr. Oz says that 20% of patients become depressed after bypass surgery. He is looking into hypnosis as a possible way to lower that percentage.

In a current study, Dr. Oz provides patients with guided imagery tapes which they listen to before and during bypass surgery.

TAPE
OZ: This guided imagery session we designed to address specifically some of the challenges that we anticipated patients having, for example pain discomfort, difficulty breathing, bleeding.

NARRATION
He is hopeful the suggestions on the tape will affect the patients during surgery, speed their recovery and reduce depression.

TAPE
OZ: So it's not with pure altruism that I studied the use of hypnosis. It's because I desperately need a tool to use for a cohort of people who are having difficulty with the challenges of surgery.

TAPE
DOC SOUND: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - procedure room sounds

TAPE
LANG: Could we get a few more four-by-fours?

NARRATION
Back in the procedure room at Beth Israel Hospital, Dr. Lang works into the third hour of what is supposed to be a one-hour procedure.

TAPE - POST
LANG: I think we need to make it bigger.

NARRATION
It has been a strenuous experience for the patient…but hypnosis has made it bearable.

Towards the end of the procedure the groggy patient turns to Halsey and says "I wouldn't have made it this far without you, because I was ready to jump off the table." (VOICE OVER THE TAPE BELOW)

TAPE
PATIENT: I wouldn't have made it this far without you, because I was ready to jump off the table.

NARRATION
Dr. Lang gets the catheter positioned correctly…

TAPE - POST
DOC SOUND: OK, I got it.

NARRATION
…and prepares to sutures the incision closed.

(Sound of operating room out)

In April of 2000, Dr. Lang published a paper in the journal Lancet, which illustrated the benefits of hypnosis in the operating room. The paper concluded that hypnosis not only reduced patient anxiety… but cut down on the amount of pain medication used… shortened procedure times by an average of 17 minutes… and saved an average of $338 dollars per procedure.

TAPE
LANG: What we have shown in the Lancet study is that pain goes up over time under standard care conditions, regardless of what one does. With the hypnosis it's a relatively flat course. And you may have seen that today during the procedure. If that would have been without hypnosis it probably would not have been doable.

NARRATION
Both Dr. Lang and Dr. Oz say they continue to use and study hypnosis because they are pragmatists… and they have seen how hypnosis helps their patients.

TAPE
OZ: These types of studies, as difficult as they are, are essential if we're going to translate the anecdotal thoughts around hypnosis to the actual practice of medicine, if we're going to become the translators of a new therapy that may be beneficial to the average person at home or in a hospital.

NARRATION
Hypnosis is still often misunderstood, but these kinds of studies are helping medical hypnosis gain acceptance in mainstream clinics and hospitals across the country. And proponents of the technique see a future in which everyone will have the option of using medical hypnosis during surgery.

For Columbia Radio News, I'm .

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Section Two: Pain & Anxiety Management

INTRO
Hypnosis is often thought of as a form of mind control. But all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, say doctors who use and teach the technique. Rather than losing control, patients are able to focus their minds in order to manage a variety of symptoms, pain and anxiety.

In the second of a three part series, Benjamin Shaw reports that hypnosis is being used to deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, manage the discomfort of cancer therapies and treat the symptoms of asthma.

NARRATION
17-year-old Joe Olszeewski (ol-JEFF-ski) has a history of severe asthma attacks. He used to dread the feeling of not being able to breath. Whenever he would feel an asthma episode coming on he would panic.

TAPE
JOE: I'd start to shake, um, my arms would go numb, the anxiety part of the attack would just get out of hand.

NARRATION
But on this snowy January day, Joe sits confidently in the office of Dr. Ran Anbar, a pediatric pulmanologist in Syracuse, New York. Joe's come to the hospital this morning not because his asthma has been bothering him, but because Dr. Anbar has invited him to share his story of success.

TAPE
JOE: I don't get panicky anymore because I know that I'm in control.

NARRATION
Joe says the sense of control he feels has helped him lessen the severity of his asthma attacks. While he still carries an inhaler with him, he hardly ever uses it anymore. Hypnosis, he says, is what has made his asthma manageable.

TAPE
JOE: Hypnosis has taught me that, out of everyone, I'm the one in control. That I can control anything I do, and I can accomplish anything I do.

NARRATION
Dr. Anbar says not all his patients find such significant relief through hypnosis. Joe is especially gifted in this regard. Learning how to control his asthma was only the tip of the iceberg says Dr. Anbar. The confidence Joe has gained from hypnosis has spread to other parts of his life. He has been able to use the relaxed concentration of a trance to increase his performance on math tests and relax himself before acting auditions.

Joe didn't know what to expect from hypnosis when he first came to see Dr. Anbar.

TAPE
JOE: It just seemed like something kind of taboo. Something, you know, almost magical. But I came in and Dr. Anbar showed me this little thing with my hands.

TAPE
ANBAR: I suggest to most everyone in trance to pick a sign that will be their cue to trigger the relaxation response.

NARRATION
Dr. Anbar gave this suggestion to Joe during his first visit. The sign Joe picked was a fist. Now when he feels asthmatic or overexcited he has something concrete he can do.

TAPE
JOE: I'll just make this fist and I'll relax, it just happens now. It took time to work on it but now I can do it 20, 30 seconds I can just close my eyes, make the fist close my eyes and come back.

NARRATION
Dr. Anbar says patients such as Joe, who are skilled at self-hypnosis, can control pain quite effectively. Joe and Dr. Anbar agree to demonstrate. Joe closes his eyes and slightly lowers his head. A few seconds later he raises his arm to signal he's in trance. Still fully communicative, Joe responds as Dr. Anbar asks him questions.

TAPE
ANBAR: Now do you have sensation in the arm right now?
JOE: A little bit.
ANBAR: Why don't you just tell it to have no sensation.
JOE: OK.
ANBAR: So what does this feel like, if at all. I'm poking his hand with a paper clip right now. There's no sensation?
JOE: No!
ANBAR: Pretty Strange, huh?
JOE: Yeah!
ANBAR: This is one demonstration of pain control. You can teach patients with chronic pain, or acute pain if they have a medical procedure or something, how to turn off pain or decrease their pain sensation.

NARRATION
But Dr. Anbar says he always cautions patients about the dangers of turning off pain.

TAPE
ANBAR: They should only apply it if they know what the pain is from and it's safe to apply. If you're having a terrible bellyache you shouldn't turn off that pain until a doctor checks you out because you might have developed appendicitis and you can actually cover it up with self-hypnosis, at least for a while.

TAPE
DOC SOUND: Door opening.
WARNKE: Welcome how are you?

NARRATION
Father Jim Warnke lives and works on a quiet street in Tea-neck, New Jersey. He is an Episcopal priest and psychotherapist. Warnke works in a cozy office that adjoins his house. The walls are lined with artwork from his patients.

TAPE
DOC SOUND
WARNKE: This was painted for me by an 18-year-old girl who consulted with me for hypnosis to improve her SAT scores and doubled her scores. (UNDER NARRATION)

NARRATION
Warnke uses hypnosis to help his patients deal with pain, anxiety attacks and phobias. He also uses self-hypnosis for pain management. Warnke has a type of glaucoma that occasionally causes him a great deal of pain. One morning, at 4 a.m., he had an especially acute attack… but he decided not to disturb his doctor until 6. So, for two hours he managed his pain with hypnosis.

TAPE
WARNKE: I went into the spare bedroom and put myself into a trance, which I was accustomed to doing at that point. And a technique that I found helpful to dissociate from the pain was, in trance, to visualize myself removing my right eye and hanging it out in space about arms distance from me and then just watch it float around there hurting.

NARRATION
He found relief by doing this. When two hours had gone by his watch beeped, telling him it was time to call the doctor.

TAPE
WARNKE: I imagined myself in trance placing my eye back in my head and got up and started to walk across the room to pick up the phone, dropped to my knees threw up everything that was in my stomach, rolled about the floor flailing. I have not before or since experienced pain like that.

NARRATION
Warnke says this is a good example of why managing pain with hypnosis should be done with care. He says he never should have let the pain go without checking it at least every fifteen minutes.

TAPE
WARNKIE: But, I managed the pain for two hours quite nicely, thank you very much. It wasn't that it didn't hurt, but I could manage it. Mind over matter means that when you don't mind so much it doesn't matter so much.

TAPE
DOC SOUND: The Ronald McDonald lobby into the game room.

NARRATION
The Manhattan Ronald McDonald House provides a home away from home for children with cancer. There is a large eating area where families can enjoy meals together, a living room with soft couches and a large salt-water aquarium. But on a Monday evening, most of the children can be found in the basement enjoying the game room.

TAPE
POST: Video game sounds

NARRATION
Jay Barnette is a young looking 17-year-old with large eyes. He wears a blue bandanna on his head. Four years ago, Jay was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nervous system. He and his mom have come up from Maryland so Jay can be treated at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Over the past two years, Jay has had to undergo a particularly painful treatment called 3F8 monoclonal antibody therapy… antibodies for short.

TAPE
JAY: With antibodies your like "oh my God" you're screaming. I mean, I wanted somebody to blow me out of my misery. It's like extreme pain they say it's almost as bad as childbirth… or maybe even worse for some people.

NARRATION
Psychologist Pat Vroom works with Jay at Sloan Kettering.

TAPE
VROOM: There are some treatments that cause discomfort or pain and we're trying to find ways to help the children manage the pain.

NARRATION
Vroom has taught Jay self-hypnosis to help him manage the pain. He says it has been very useful for him.

TAPE
JAY: 'cause all the pain is in your mind, you know, and if you just don't think about it, you don't focus on it you know, you can just go away.

NARRATION
A big Star Wars fan, Jay takes his mind away from the pain by traveling to a galaxy far, far away. In the video room of the Ronald McDonald House, he takes out his well-worn copy of Star Wars: Episode II, and cues-up the scenes he imagined during his treatment.

TAPE (Sound of video tape being put in VCR under this)
JAY: In Star Wars there's a planet called Naboo, which is very beautiful. I focused on that. Like me being there… with the water and the grass plains… That's like my utopia. (Click and music swells) look at that! Pretty, the grass and the waterfall in the background. Look at them frolicking around gingerly in the grass.

NARRATION (Music continues under this section)
He pictured himself in this idyllic scene, walking through the green fields, swimming in the lake surrounded by waterfalls and training with Jedi knights such as Obie-Wan Kanobe.

TAPE
VROOM: They would give him words of wisdom and tell him how to manage his pain better.

TAPE
STAR WARS: Use the force Luke. Let go Luke.

TAPE
VROOM: I mean it turns out that that is a wonderful metaphor.

TAPE
STAR WARS: The force is strong with this one.

TAPE
VROOM: Using your force or your inner wisdom.

NARRATION
Jay says, like a Jedi, he was practicing a form of self-control.

Over time Jay found it easier to take himself into trance… with the hypnosis he would often be able to sleep through the treatments. Those were the really good days he says.

TAPE
JAY: I would feel pain a little bit, but, you know, not as much. Most of the days I would be like… you know, just lying there.

NARRATION
Vroom says people fear hypnosis means a loss of control. But self-hypnosis gives patients more control over their treatment, their medication and their quality of life.

TAPE
VROOM: We're noticing that once they get the hang of putting themselves into a trance then the medication can be reduced. The children and the parents don't like to have the pain medication because it leaves them feeling groggy the rest of the day or sleeping the whole rest of the day and time is important.

NARRATION
Psychiatrist Harold Wain works at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC. He treats soldiers returning from the fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Dr. Wain sees soldiers, they are dealing with amputations, post traumatic stress disorder, depression and other terrors of war. He uses hypnosis to treat both the physical and mental traumas to which they've been subjected.

TAPE
WAIN: Most of the soldiers that I'm seeing that are coming back from the front are medically surgically injured patients, which is a good population to use hypnosis with. Because if you look at hypnosis some of the aspect of it are getting absorbed in a task, decreasing peripheral awareness and if you can do that you can allow yourself that avenue of escape, as well as healing.

NARRATION
Dr. Wain recently treated a soldier who was being frightened by visions of dead bodies lying next to him. Wain taught the patient self-hypnosis. Through the hypnotic technique the patient is now able to take himself to a safe place and tell himself the fear he's experiencing is normal after being exposed to death on the battlefield.

TAPE
WAIN: And the more he is able to do that the more he recognizes that he's anchored, that he doesn't have to keep on ruminating over the scenes of death, but he can learn to distance himself. And with that he was able to resolve the issue and go on for his treatment without having vivid details of the past disrupt his rehabilitation.

NARRATION
But, Dr. Wain says, it is important to remember that hypnosis is not a cure-all.

TAPE
WAIN: I think we don't want to just look at hypnosis as the savior of mankind. It is not something for everybody. So you have to have that flexibility to know when I use it, under what conditions I use it. And it's no different than any other medication you give a patient.

NARRATION
More doctors are finding that hypnosis is a helpful tool in treating a number of symptoms, side effects and diseases. And many patients are using self-hypnosis to manage pain and lower anxiety levels.

Patients using self-hypnosis say it is a form mind control. But the only one controlling your mind is you.

For Columbia Radio News, I'm Benjamin Shaw

###

Section Three: What is Hypnosis?

INTRO
The use of hypnosis in mainstream medicine is increasing. It is being used as a complementary therapy for everything from asthma to post traumatic stress disorder. Doctors and scientists are beginning to have success in unlocking the mysteries behind hypnosis… but no one knows exactly how it works. In the third of a three part series, Benjamin Shaw reports that stage hypnotists and their methods have provided clues for the scientific exploration of hypnosis.

NARRATION
On a cold January night, over 500 students gather in a large auditorium at Wesleyan University to see hypnotist Dan Larosa.

TAPE
Ambient sound of crowd in auditorium.

NARRATION
Larosa has been entertaining people with hypnosis for 18 years. Not everyone is hypnotizable he says… but he doesn't leave to chance the selection of participants. Before the show begins, Larosa sits in the last row looking over the audience and explains his method.

TAPE
LAROSA: I do suggestions from the audience first, testing and then I select the ones that I think will be the best and say you, yeah you, yeah you…

TAPE
DOC SOUND: Ohm Music up with following narration

NARRATION
The show begins. The stage is bare except for a row of 20 chairs. Larosa walks through the audience, a wireless mic his only prop. He starts with the first test.

TAPE
DOCUMENTARY SOUND
LAROSA: Here we go. We're going to do a couple quick tests… and this test involves your imagination. What I'd like you to do is to lock your hands together over your head… (FADE UNDER)

NARRATION
He has the audience imagine their hands are stuck together with crazy glue. Some of the students struggle to unclasp their hands. Others release them with ease.

TAPE (POST)
LAROSA: If your hands locked tight and you'd like to volunteer, raise one of your hands.

NARRATION
Twenty-five volunteers run up on stage. Larosa tells them he is looking for the most hypnotizable subjects, not to be offended if he sends them back to their seats. He conducts a couple more tests and whittles the group of volunteers down to five… then spends the next two hours entertaining the crowd by having these people dance, forget their names and flirt with strangers.

After watching Larosa hypnotize their classmates, two sophomores try to comprehend what they've just seen.

TAPE
TWO BOYS: If you believe it it's real. It's like on Sinefeld when George says 'It's not a lie if you believe it.' Hypnosis is mind control. If they want their minds to be controlled, it works and it's funny and it's impressive. I mean, it's perfect for college students to enjoy.

NARRATION
In 1958 the American Medical Association recognized hypnosis and suggested it be taught in medical school. Doctors and therapists use it in a clinical setting on a daily basis and while many questions remain unanswered… science is getting closer to understanding hypnosis.

Dr. Herbert Spiegel is a New York psychiatrist and a leading expert in medical hypnosis. He and his son, Dr. David Spiegel, wrote the definitive textbook on the subject. "Trance and Treatment: Clinical Uses of Hypnosis."

Dr. Herbert Spiegel first realized the power of hypnosis while treating soldiers during the Second World War. For 22 years, he taught medical hypnosis at Columbia University. And at 89-years-old, he still treats patients in his East Side office. Two doors lead into a large comfortable room and keep outside noise at bay. A couch and two leather recliners surround a coffee table.

Dr. Spiegel says he appreciates the skills involved in stage hypnotism, but worries it's misleading.

TAPE
HERBERT SPIEGEL: The old fashioned notion of hypnosis was that they thought that the hypnotist was projecting something onto the patient. We now know that the hypnotist projects nothing at all, he stimulates the capacity that the person has.

NARRATION
He says stage hypnotists are very good at quickly identifying who is… and who isn't hypnotizable.

For over 50 years Dr. Spiegel has worked to standardize the use of hypnosis in a clinical setting. One of his major contributions to the filed is a simple test that measures hypnotic ability.

Early in his career, Spiegel realized that particularly hypnotizable people can roll their eyes so that nothing but the whites will show. Spiegel was able to develop a five second eye roll test as a quick way to measure hypnotic capacity. He demonstrates the test on a visitor.

TAPE
HERBERT SPIEGEL: Without moving your head look all the way up to the top of your head, look way up as high as you can. And as you look up, slowly close your eyes while you're looking up. Now on a zero-to-four scale, you score two, so you would be on the low midrange in your hypnotic capacity.

NARRATION
No one knows why there is a correlation between eye flexibility and hypnotic capacity. But Spiegel says roughly 15 to 20 percent of the population is on the low end of the scale, 50 percent are midrange, 25 percent are highly hypnotizable… and about 5 percent of the population is not hypnotizable at all.

Dr. David Spiegel, Herbert's son, is a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University's School of Medicine. He defines hypnosis as a focused state of concentration, more akin to daydreaming than mind control. He says hypnosis is a naturally occurring phenomenon… one that is much more common than most people realize.

TAPE
DAVID SPIEGEL: Hypnosis is something like looking through a telephoto lens in a camera. What you see you see, with great detail but you are less aware of the context. People are in states like that when they watch a good movie and get so caught up in it that they forget they are watching a movie. Or people in states of performance, you know athletes or performers who are really into their role or their game.

TAPE
WARNKE: If you want to see a large group of men who are experts in self-hypnosis turn on the NBA game any weekend and watch someone taking a foul shot.

NARRATION
Jim Warnke is a psychotherapist who uses hypnosis in his practice. He says we needn't look far to find examples of trance in everyday life.

TAPE
WARNKE: You will watch them taking deep repeated breaths you will watch them having an eye fixation on the hoop. The crowd, while there, is a blur. The sound, while probably heard, is muffled, why because it is a state of hyper-concentration. That's a form of trance.

NARRATION
Warnke says people often go into trance when listening to the radio. He says the best mass hypnotist he knows is Garisson Keillor.

TAPE
GARRISON KEILLOR: It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown….

TAPE
WARNKE: He is a master hypnotist. When he does the news from Lake Wobegon, his voice is different from the time he uses it at any other time in the broadcast.

TAPE (POST)
KEILLOR

TAPE
WARNKE: He's like a jazz singer

TAPE (POST)
KEILLOR

TAPE
WARNKE: He's actually doing it like some people do scat, only because it's mid-western you don't notice it. But it's like a jazz singer, it's breathy and soft and it's up close to the microphone and so in a very soft voice you can get incredible inflection.

TAPE
KEILLOR: And that's the news from Lake Wobegone.

TAPE
WARNKE: That tells you the trance is over. He ends it the same way. It's like saying 10, 9, 8, 7.

NARRATION
Dr. David Spiegel is using new technology to examine what differentiates hypnosis from typical brain activity. PET scans allow doctors to see what regions in the brain are activated during specific mental tasks. Dr. Spiegel and his colleagues are using PET scans to study what happens in a patient's brain during hypnosis.

In August of 2000, Dr. Spiegel published a study in The American Journal of Psychiatry reporting how hypnosis can alter visual processing in the brain. Eight highly hypnotizable subjects were asked to look at color pictures and imagine them as black and white.

TAPE
DAVID SPIEGEL: We showed them a series of grids, that looked like the Mondrian painting, in the pet scanner so we could record blood flow in specifics parts of the brain that actually process color vision. Then we hypnotized them and we instructed them hypnotically to drain the color from the color grid and in another condition to imagine they were painting color into the black and white grid and make it look colorful.

NARRATION
Dr. Spiegel and his colleagues found that when the hypnotized subjects imagined they were looking at color their brains acted as though they were looking at color… and when they imagined they were looking at black and white, even though they weren't, their brain acted as though they were looking at black and white.

Dr. Spiegel says he's not yet able to look at a PET scan and determine if someone is in hypnosis or not…

TAPE
DAVID SPIEGEL: …But we are getting to a point where we can say there's brain activity that occurs when you do certain tasks in hypnosis that you just don't see without it.

NARRATION
The old notion of hypnosis was that people perceived things normally… but simply thought about them differently.

Dr. Spiegel says his study is helping to prove that hypnosis is a unique psychological state with distinct brain activity.

TAPE
DAVID SPIEGEL: Hypnosis allows people to actually alter the way they perceive stimuli… hypnosis changes not just want we think about what we see or feel, but actually it helps us to change what we see and feel…So, in this sense, the study showed that believing is seeing.

TAPE
DOC SOUND: Ohm Music

NARRATION
Stage hypnotists, such as Dan Larosa, are experts at making people see what they believe. Towards the end of his Wesleyan show Larosa gives a suggestion to one of the volunteers… and instantly she is in the presences of her favorite TV heart-throb.

TAPE
LAROSA: Look at me. I am Ashton Kutcher… Oh, my God… Oh, my God

NARRATION
Science is just beginning to understand the phenomenon that stage hypnotism showcases so well… Dr. Herbert Spiegel says that in many ways modern medical hypnosis is indebted to the quacks and vaudeville performers… for stage hypnotists are the ones who kept the art form alive when scientists and doctors ignored it.

Hypnosis has been with us for hundreds of years. Today, accurately measuring hypnotic capacity allows clinicians use it reliably. In the future, a fuller understanding of hypnosis will allow even more doctors and patients to take advantage of this powerful technique.

For Columbia Radio News, I'm Benjamin Shaw.
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BOOKS & ARTICLES

Spiegel, Herbert, and David Spiegel. Trance and Treatment: clinical uses of hypnosis. New York: Basic Books, 1978.

Connery, Donald. The Inner Source: Exploring hypnosis with Dr. Herbert Spiegel. New york: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1982.

Baker, Robert. A doctor's mind-body guide to help you through surgery. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

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Post Script

I have a small notebook in which I wrote all my perspective master's project ideas. One by one they were rejected and crossed off the list. In late October, I was feeling frantic about not having selected a story idea. But, on a Tuesday morning, while riding the subway north to my RW1 beat, I ran across a 200 word blurb in the Science section of the New York Times.

The Article briefly covered a study in which British researchers had shown people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome found significant relief from using hypnosis. I knew nothing about hypnosis. Like many people, my only exposure to the phenomenon was during college when a stage hypnotist came to campus. I was intrigued by the idea that hypnosis was being used in mainstream medicine.

I began doing some research to see how wide spread the use of hypnosis was in medicine. I looked online, spoke to my brother, a medical student, and mentioned it to most everyone with whom I spoke. I found that exciting discoveries were being made about hypnosis and the use of hypnosis was growing in a number of medical fields.

I wasn't immediately convinced hypnosis was the story I had been looking for. But every time I mentioned the idea to a friend the response would invariably be one of curiosity. I quickly realized this was a story that would not only fascinate listeners, but would hold my interest into spring.

I began contacting stage hypnotists, therapists and doctors. I quickly learned that Herbert Spiegel, a major contributor to the field of medical hypnosis, taught at Columbia for many years. I met with him early on. He was a wealth of information on medical hypnosis and a wonderful source of additional contacts.

I began doing interviews in December. Most of my early interviews were phoners. I ended up using most of these for background. I arraigned most of my in-person interviews to coincide with the winter break. I spent the month of January traveling up and down the east coast on the Chinatown bus, my mini-disc recorder in hand.

Most of my radio equipment was relatively new to me, which meant I was learning how to use it as I went along. The quality of my early recordings left much to be desired, but it improved over time.

Logging the 50-plus hours of tape I recorded was a major chore, one that was manageable only because I stayed on top of it. Interviews I left to log later, didn't get logged.
I started laying actualities into ProTools at the beginning of February and slowly built three scripts around the sound. The scripts changed over time, and actualities were cut. But for the most part, the tape I chose in February is what makes up the piece today.

Mid way through my reporting, I learned about a teenager with neuroblastoma who used Star Wars imagery to help manage pain during cancer treatments. I knew that a scene built around this child's story would be engaging, but I was turned back every time I tried to get his contact information. After some urging from my advisor, John Dinges, I tried once again. And a week before the project was due, I managed to set up an interview. I am thankful he gave me that push, and others along the way. I worked harder, learned more and the project grew stronger, thanks to his guidance.

I began the project thinking I would highlight the differences between the public's perception of hypnosis and the way it was actually being used in clinical settings. Along the way the project morphed into a piece on the growing use of medical hypnosis.

I enjoyed the process enormously. I learned a lot about the technical and organizational skills necessary to complete a radio project of this scale. And I am thankful that, even as I finish up my final edits, my story still intrigues me.
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