50 years of hypnosis in medicine and clinical health psychology: a synthesis of cultural crosscurrents.

In 2008, the 50th anniversary of ASCH, hypnosis is used increasingly for healthcare applications in hospitals, clinics, and psychotherapy practice. A substantial body of research demonstrates the efficacy of hypnosis as part of the integrative treatment of many conditions that traditional medicine has found difficult to treat (e.g., Pinnell & Covino, 2000; Elkins, Jensen, & Patterson, 2007). The practice of hypnosis in healthcare has been altered and centrally influenced by the rapid growth of technological medicine in the 1950's, the AIDS epidemic and development of psychoneuroimmunology, revolutionary developments in genetics and neuroimaging technology, and the progression from alternative to integrative medicine. We have come to develop more detailed expectations about the beneficial effects of hypnotic interventions for health problems. We have also come to know that in these populations hypnosis can lead not only to reduced anxiety but also specifically altered physiological parameters.