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About Our Experts
Marty Rossman, M.D.Physician, author, speaker, researcher, and consultant, Dr. Rossman founded The Healing Mind in order to raise awareness about the power of high quality mind/body self-care tools in self-healing and in the health professions. A graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School in 1969, he has had a long-standing interest in the practical importance of attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and mind/body practices in medicine and health. In addition to a busy practice emphasizing non-drug medicine and patient participation, he has taught clinical guided imagery to over 10,000 health professionals since 1982.
Dr. Rossman is the author of FIGHTING CANCER FROM WITHIN (Holt, NY, 2003) and the award winning self-help book, GUIDED IMAGERY FOR SELF-HEALING (New World Library, Oct 2000), and has written many articles and book chapters on imagery, mind/body medicine and integrative medicine. He is also the creator of dozens of guided imagery audios and home study courses for both public and professionals.
He is Founder and Director of the Collaborative Medicine Center, Greenbrae, California; Co-Director, Academy for Guided Imagery, Malibu, CA; Clinical Associate, Dept. of Medicine, University of California Medical Center, San Francisco; Adjunct Teaching Faculty, California School for Professional Psychology; and a consultant to the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF and the Rosenthal Center for Complementary Medicine, Columbia University, in New York.
Dr. Rossman is a popular keynote speaker and workshop leader who has presented more than 600 invited lectures, keynote lectures and workshops, with consistently outstanding reviews from both lay and professional audiences. He has consulted on various issues involving integrative health care with organizations such as Kaiser Permanente, Tenet Health Systems, FCB HealthCare, Stanford University, the University of Arizona, and the University of California, San Francisco.
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
Rachel Naomi Remen is the Founder and Director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal which has legitimized values and spirit as a valid concern in medical education and trained 1000s of physicians and medical educators in the principles and practice of a medicine of healing. A board-certified pediatrician, she is a pioneer of holistic and mind/body medicine and was the first to recognize the spiritual and psychological impact of cancer on people and their families and develop effective approaches to meet these needs. She has been in the private practice of psycho-oncology for over twenty five years.
Dr. Remen is Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine She is a pioneer in developing courses in medical education which expand ideas about the professional role of the physician and enable medical students to engage with the mind, emotions and spirit of their patients as central to the recovery of health In 1992 she designed the groundbreaking UCSF medical school course “The Healer's Art” featured in US News and World Report's Best Graduate Schools and now taught by faculty and associate deans at 37 other medical schools. Dr Remen has also been a pioneer in developing Continuing Medical Education programs for graduate physicians to enable them to be more present as whole persons in their work, deepen their satisfaction in and commitment to service and effectively engage with the whole person who is the patient.
Dr Remen is a 1962 graduate of Cornell Medical School and holds three honorary degrees and many other honors. She is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal and national bestseller My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging. Her books have been translated into 14 languages and are presently used as textbooks in many nursing schools and a majority of American medical schools as well as health professional schools in Canada and Europe. As a master storyteller and public speaker, she has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country over the past thirty five years, reminding them of the power of their humanity to heal both themselves and others and their ability to use their lives to make a difference. Dr. Remen has a 52-year personal history of Crohn's disease and her work is a unique blend of the viewpoint of physician and patient.
Emmett Miller, M.D.
Emmett Miller, one of the fathers of mind/body medicine, is a physician, scientist, musician, and master storyteller, whose multicultural heritage has given him a unique social, medical, and spiritual perspective.
A graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr. Miller has served as lecturer or preceptor at Stanford University, the University of California, and other universities and medical schools. He was a founder and medical director of the Cancer Support and Education Center in Menlo Park (1977), California, and a co-convener of the groundbreaking California State Task Force on Self-Esteem (1988).
He is probably best known for his invention and development of the first deep relaxation/guided imagery tapes (1973), combining music, nature sounds and his unique voice. Now on CDs and DVDs, these healing products are recommended and used by top health care organizations such as Kaiser Permanente and the May Clinic and by health professionals, business people, performers, and athletes, including the U. S. Olympic Track and Field Teams. He is the author of Deep Healing: The Essence of Mind/Body Medicine and a frequent speaker at professional and corporate conferences and universities.
His most recent projects include LIGHT (Leadership Institute for Global Healing and Transformation), and a project to help give veterans returning from the war access to deep healing, as well as being the Producer of the documentary feature LIVE LIFE.
Jeanne Achterberg, Ph.D
Dr. Achterberg is a scientist who has received international recognition for her pioneering research in medicine and psychology. A faculty member for 11 years at Southwestern Medical School, she is expressionsly a Professor of Psychology at Saybrook Institute, San Francisco. She also co-chaired the mind/body interventions ad hoc advisory panel and the Research Technologies Conference of the Office of Alternative Medicine, and was a member of the Advisory Board, Unconventional Cancer Treatments Study Group, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. She is a research consultant and advisor to foundations. She also provides training in the use of mind/body therapies for health care professionals in Europe, Japan, Argentina, and to refugees in Kosova and Macedonia.
She has authored over 100 papers and five books. Imagery in Healing is critically acclaimed as a classic in the field of mind/body studies, and Woman as Healer is described as a ground breaking work, surveying the activities of women from prehistoric times to the present. Rituals of Healing is a primer on the use of creative therapies for health and medicine, and won the Book of the Year Award from the American Nursing Association. Her new book, Lightning at the Gate, the story of her personal healing journey, was published in 2001.
Her awards include Healer of the Year, given by the Nurse Healers' Cooperative, the Gardner Murphy Scholar Award, and the Moncrieff Award for Burn Research. In April of 2001, she was featured in Time Magazine as one of the six innovators of alternative and complementary medicine for the coming century.
Dr. Achterberg is past president of the Association of Transpersonal Psychology, She was Senior Editor for Alternative Therapies, a peer-reviewed medical journal with an international circulation. Her expressions research is at North Hawaii Community Hospital in Waimea, Hawaii with the responsibility to study prayer and healing.
Kenneth R. Pelletier, Ph.D
Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier is a Clinical Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, at the University of Arizona School of Medicine; and, a Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco (UCSF). At the University of Arizona, he is Director of the Corporate Health Improvement Program (CHIP) which is a collaborative research program between CHIP and 15 of the Fortune 500 corporations. Also, he is Chairman of the American Health Association and is a Vice President with Healthtrac Incorporated.
Prior to these positions, Dr. Pelletier served as Clinical Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine; was Director of the Stanford Corporate Health Program (SCHP); and, Director of the NIH funded Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program at Stanford (CAMPS). From 1974 until joining the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1990, Dr. Pelletier held a dual appointment as an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry, University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco (UCSF).
In addition to his faculty positions, Dr Pelletier has served a member of the Board of Directors of the California Wellness Foundation, Foundation Health Systems (FHS), Health Systems International (HSI), and the Social Venture Network. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, studied at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland and has published over 300 professional journal articles in behavioral medicine, disease management, worksite interventions, and alternative/integrative medicine.
At the present time, Dr. Pelletier is a medical and business consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Business Group on Health, the Federation of State Medical Boards, and major corporations including IBM, American Airlines, Medtronic, Disney, Merck, Ford, NASA, Microsoft ENCARTA, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, United Healthcare, the Pasteur Institute of Lille, France, the Alpha Group of Mexico, and the Singapore Ministry of Health. He also serves on the boards of the Healthtrac Foundation, United Behavioral Health, American Institute of Stress, International Spa Association (ISPA),American Journal of Health Promotion, and as a peer reviewer for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM), and Annals of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Pelletier is listed in Who's Who in America and in Who's Who in the World. His research, clinical practice, and publications have been the subject of numerous national television programs including several appearances on the ABC World News, the Today program, Good Morning America, the CBS Evening News, 48 Hours, the McNeil-Lehrer Newshour, CNN, FOX News, CBS Sunday Morning,Hour Magazine, the Time/Life video series, the award winning BBC series The Long Search, and the five-part Blue Cross/Blue Shield sponsored PBS series Healthy People, Healthy Business. Dr. Pelletier is the author of ten (10) major books including the international best seller Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer (New York: Delacorte and Delta, 1977; Revised in 1992); Holistic Medicine: From Stress to Optimum Health (New York: Delacorte and Delta, 1981; Revised in 1991); Healthy People in Unhealthy Places; Stress and Fitness at Work (New York: Delacorte, Delta, and Doubleday, 1984); Sound Mind - Sound Body: A New Model for Lifelong Health (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995); The Best Alternative Medicine: What Works? What Does Not? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000); and Stress Free for Good: Ten Scientifically Proven Life Skills for Health and Happiness (New York: Harper Collins, 2005).
Posted in About
The Power of Self-Healing
We are here to help you improve your health and your life. We will teach you how to use a power you already have to:
It's a power that has been researched more than all other approaches to health combined, and it's complementary to all of them. It's safe, effective, inexpensive, and has side benefits instead of side effects! While you already have this power, you probably have never been taught to use it. It's the power of your mind/body connection.Posted in Homepage
Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia is a common, poorly understood, and often disabling source of chronic pain. Over 80% of fibromyalgia sufferers are women in the prime of life. While the cause is not known, medical research shows that mind/body practices reduce the pain, anxiety, and fatigue caused by fibromyalgia and improve the quality of sleep. Fibromyalgia patients who learn and practice mind/body relaxation skills feel and function better than those who do not.
On this CD, mind/body expert Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier will explain how stress affects fibromyalgia and will teach you to use breathing, relaxation, self-suggestion and visualization to reduce pain and stress and promote better health.
These approaches are complementary to any other approach you may take to healing - whether natural or pharmaceutical. Dr. Pelletier’s MindBody medicine program is designed to help you become a more active agent in your own healing, so you can help yourself to better health.
Posted in Health Issues Pain Relief
Women's Health
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Posted in Health Issues Women's Health
Fighting Cancer
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Posted in Health Issues Fighting Cancer
Wellness & Lifestyle
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Posted in Health Issues Wellness & Lifestyle
Specific Health Issues
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- Asthma
- Diabetes
- Headaches
- Heart Disease
- High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Sleep
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Posted in Health Issues Specific Health Issues
Pain Relief
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Posted in Health Issues Pain Relief
Stress & Anxiety
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Posted in Health Issues Stress & Anxiety
Monthly imagery meditation and discussion group
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Knowledge
About KnowledgeInformation, research, and current news about Mind Body medicine, and answers to frequently asked questions about relaxation, guided imagery, and self-healing with mind/body approaches.
Read an excellent overview of Mind/Body Medicine from the NCCAM at the National Institutes of Health. This overview reviews mind/body findings in immunity, Parkinson’s disease, surgical preparation, and more, as well as brain research that is demonstrating the mechanisms of mind/body practices.
The non-profit Center for the Advancement of Health provides an excellent review of mind/body approaches in chronic pain
Read the NIH Technology Assessment Statement on the Integration of Behavioral and Relaxation Approaches into the Treatment of Chronic Pain and Insomnia.
The RealAge website reports that managing your stress through simple imagery techniques can reduce your physiologic age by as much as 16 years.
FAQ's
Posted in Knowledge
Wellness and Mind/Body Health
One of our highly respected experts, Rachel Remen, MD, a physician who has herself suffered with a chronic illness for over 50 years, has written about a “healthy way to have a disease.” She has also expressed some concerns about the term “wellness”, voicing a concern that some people with chronic illness may feel excluded by the term. Instead, she suggests we consider the term “wholeness.” “People can be ill,” she says, “and still, deep down, feel whole.” We couldn’t agree more, and whether your goal is wellness or wholeness, the way you use your mind is perhaps the most critical factor under your control.
Many of the same guided imagery practices that can be helpful to people dealing with illness can also be very helpful to people who are well and have set their sights on maintaining or improving their sense of wellness. Our “Creating Wellness” CD can help you learn to use these practices for higher level wellness.
Posted in Stress relief
Stress and Stress Relief
The stress response is a physical reaction in your body that is often called the “fight or flight” response. This is triggered when you run into a dangerous situation, like a wild animal, or a mugger. Your body prepares for survival by sending an alarm through the sympathetic nervous system, which curiously doesn’t have anything to do with being sympathetic, but has to do with surviving a crisis. The sympathetic nervous system sends signals throughout your body that increase your heart rate and blood pressure, make all your senses more acute, and shunt blood to your large muscles to supply extra strength for the emergency. You become supercharged for survival. This is the state we hear about where mothers move cars to save their babies, or people perform heroic acts that defy belief.
Stress researchers refer to the scenario I just described as “Type 1 stress”: there is a clearly identifiable threat, an action that can be taken to resolve it, and one way or another, it’s over quickly.
If you survive the threat, your body goes back into a compensatory rest period, called the relaxation response, which allows the brain and the body to relax, repair, and recharge. Brain and muscle chemicals are replaced, energy is renewed, and injuries are healed. The relaxation response signals travel through what is called the parasympathetic nervous system, which relaxes the muscles, sends blood back to the digestive system, and lets the brain, heart and blood vessels relax.
Fortunately, in modern life, we rarely run into wild beasts or direct threats to our lives. But in the course of our daily life we are confronted with many things that are also threats, even if they are not so immediate. And even if we aren’t confronted with them, we hold them in our minds and worry about them. We worry about mortgages, and taxes, and wars, and jobs, and health, and loved ones…and the list goes on and on. The thing is… the brain reacts to these worries, even though they are only thoughts, images, and fears, as if they were real. They can trigger a stress response in your body, even if it is not full-fledged. The sympathetic nervous system is aroused and the body starts running on high alert even when it doesn’t have to … stress researchers call this “type 2 stress” … triggered by multiple, chronic, sometimes even vague worries and hassles, that often have no clear path of resolution. This kind of on-going stress is what wears us down, depletes our energy, erodes our mood, and often causes us to reach for the closest form of comfort, which may or may not be good for our health.
Because the situations that trigger this response are often insoluble, the solution to Type 2 stress is to learn to become less preoccupied with worrying, learn to reduce our reactivity to stressful thoughts, and learn to trigger the relaxation response on a regular basis. We interrupt, reduce, or relieve Type 2 stress by using the same part of us that caused it in the first place, the brain and the mind.
There are two major skills in resolving or reducing stress – one is resolving stressful situations that can be resolved, the other is changing the way you react to an unresolvable situation.
Our Stress Relief Through Guided Imagery CD will teach you to reduce your stress with simple breathing techniques, deep relaxation, and creative problem-solving through guided imagery.
Posted in Stress relief
Healing Wisdom
Think about this: at one time in this life, you were a single microscopic cell in your mother's uterus.. This fertilized cell divided into two identical cells. Then those two divided into four, then eight, then sixteen and so on, until you were a tiny microscopic ball of cells, each identical to all the others. Then, for reasons that no scientist yet understands, one line of cells becomes different than the rest -- a pale streak forms on one side of the ball. This line of cells, the "neural crest", will eventually become your brain, your nervous system and your skin. The side of the ball away from the neural crest folds into itself and then seals over, forming a tube that runs through the ball. The cells of this tube will become your heart, blood vessels, lungs, stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, pancreas, reproductive and other internal organs, while the middle cells between the inside and outside become your spine, muscles, and connective tissue. All of this happens in an intricately coordinated dance with no visible choreographer, yet it happens perfectly more than 95% of the time. As an embryo, your tiny body goes through phases that mimic earlier stages of evolutionary development, looking at various times like a fish, a chicken, a pig, a monkey, and finally little baby you. After birth you continue to grow and develop new skills and abilities, meeting challenges, infections, injuries, and recovering from the vast majority of illnesses without ever having to consciously know how.
As an adult, you inhabit a body of approximately 75 trillion cells, all alive, all metabolizing, all changing all the time. Every cell takes in nutrients and oxygen and releases waste products so that over time, every cell replaces itself many times over. The body, seemingly so physical, so stable, so solid, turns out to be more a process and less an object. An old Zen saying tells us "You can't step in the same river twice" and this applies perfectly to the body. While there is a form that abides, the material substance is in constant flux. Molecular biologists tell us that the body replaces every molecule it has within six months -- so you literally do not have the same body you had a year ago --or even a day ago. The same intelligence that made your body in the first place directs this constant recreation and repair, as it has for billions of years. Whether you call this intelligence God, life, nature, Chi, genes, DNA, or spirit, it is what guides and animates the process we call healing.
Healing, when I went to medical school, was considered somewhat of a dirty word, unless you were speaking of wound healing. Otherwise, it was considered to smack of mysticism, voodoo, quackery, and the allegedly disproven concept of vitalism. Vitalism is the idea that there is something special about life, that it is an energy that flows through and around us, that it creates and organizes our bodies and guides our ability to heal. Nearly every system of medicine except for our current system, is based on the vitalistic principle, and the idea that it has ever been disproven is nonsense. Whether it is called life, spirit, prana (as it is in Ayurvedic medicine), Chi (as in Chinese medicine), or, as Hippocrates called it, the vis medicatrix naturae, ours is the only medicine that systematically ignores vital energy and considers it either unworthy of attention or outside the bounds of consideration.
In daily practice, however, even modern physicians know that without the healing abilities built into us by God and nature, we are helpless to heal. A surgeon can place the edges of a wound together but without the proper response from the body, the wound will not heal. A physician can prescribe antibiotics for an infection, but without an effective immune response, the patient will not recover. Healing is an innate property of life, and learning to support that property is critical to a truly good medicine. Good medicine requires that we apply ourselves as studiously to the science and art of healing as we do to the treatment of disease, and learn to use natural healing approaches as knowledgably as we use pharmaceuticals. Natural healing approaches need not be arcane and complex. They often stem from simple practices that support the cultivation and expression of the life energy and spirit that is inherent in our nature.
A Tale of Two Gardeners
When my first daughter was a year old, we moved to a new home. In the back of the house, adjacent to her room, were half a dozen plants that were obviously in poor condition. The stems were virtually bare of leaves, and those that remained were curled, browned and discolored. There were no flowers or buds. I am not much of a plant person, but even I could tell that these plants were not doing well.
I called a gardener. A leather-skinned fellow looking like he was in his mid-to-late sixties, looked at the plants for less than a minute and told me that they had four different infestations and diseases. He then recommended treating them with four different pesticides. I told him that the plants were right around our daughter's room and wondered aloud if the pesticides might be toxic. He lit up a cigarette and squinted at me as he took a long drag. "Nah", he said as he exhaled, "I've been using them for years and they haven't bothered me none." Later I learned he was actually in his forties.
Concerned about the potential risks of this approach, I got a second opinion from an organic gardener, a pleasant young man who carefully examined the plants and their environment. He agreed completely with the first gardener about the four infestations, but his therapeutic suggestions differed markedly. He said " You know, these plants haven't been looked after for some time, and they are pretty sick. If they were healthy, they would naturally resist these infections, but they are pretty weak. We might have to use some pesticides, but first, let's give them some help and see what they can do on their own." He then showed me how to prune the deadwood, aerate the soil, fertilize the plants, and get them on a regular watering schedule. He cut the plants down to the ground so they wouldn't be putting energy into non-productive growth. I was amazed that they could survive but he explained about roots -- "There's as much of that plant underground as above ground -- and from those invisible roots the new growth will emerge if we nourish it properly." In the next few months, new shoots grew, and healthy leaves appeared. The next year, we had beautiful blossoms.
I use this story to illustrate two very different approaches to medicine and healing. One seeks to cooperate with, stimulate, and work with natural healing abilities, while the other goes to war with nature, and attempts to conquer her. Sometimes one works better than the other, sometimes both work, and sometimes neither. There is no reason that they need to be mutually exclusive, and there are many times over the past 30 years when I have worked with patients using both approaches side by side.
Of course, while people also respond to good nutrition, adequate water, and elimination of energy wasting efforts, humans have also been blessed with a mind that can allow us to evoke, understand, interact with and cooperate with spirit and life if we so choose. The human mind, especially the imagination, gives us mobility in time, the ability to learn, and the ability to change our course in life. It can be our best friend or worst enemy, depending on how it is used. We can let a runaway imagination worry us sick, or we can learn to use it to take our bearings in life, and set our course for where we want to go.
Here’s a brief example: a young woman named Alexandra developed some breast lumps, and in spite of many assurances from very good doctors that they were benign, couldn’t stop worrying that they were malignant. I invited her to take a few deep breaths, relax, and imagine that she could take her mind inside her breast. I asked her to invite an image to form that could tell her something useful about these lumps, and to accept and explore the image that came, whether or not it made immediate sense to her. She reported that she saw a small stream, with a number of small stones partially obstructing the flow. As she looked more closely, she said that the stones actually looked like pearls, and began talking about how oysters formed pearls as a response to irritation, and that they were an attempt to protect the oyster from these irritations. I asked her if that reminded her of anything in her own life, and she told me about a good number of irritations and stressors she had been experiencing, none serious or unsolvable, but mostly having to do with being torn in several directions by the needs of her family and her charitable interests. The demanding schedule she had been trying to keep in order to meet all these needs had led to her drinking more coffee, eating poorly, not resting enough, and feeling run down, and she saw how these were likely to be at the cause of her developing these lumps. She ended her guided imagery meditation with a feeling of appreciation for the wisdom of her body, and a feeling that she could and would resolve these issues. As she reworked her schedule, balanced her attention between others and herself, ate better and eliminated coffee, the lumps went away.
Alexandra, and other people who stop to consider what life and spirit may be telling them through their bodies, learn that the wisdom of nature is built into their bodies, minds and spirits, and that they can have access to it by taking the time to get quiet and invite its guidance. Symptoms are a way that they life force gets our attention. They are like the oil lights on our cars. We wouldn’t pull our cars into the gas station and ask the mechanic to tape them over, or cut the wires to them – we want to know what’s needed to make the proper adjustments so we can prevent further damage. By respecting the life force, asking for its guidance, and paying attention in this special way, we will often find that illness can teach us about health and wellness. We learn that we can cultivate our ability to care for and learn from the healing nature that lies within us all, and we reown our respect for the healing marvels that we truly are.
Adapted from an article in Unity by Marty Rossman, MD
Posted in Wisdom
Sound Medicine
What we say and how we say it affects people, and what a doctor says, especially during a critical time of illness, can affect people tremendously, for better or worse. For thousands of years, a reassuring manner and kind voice were nearly all that doctors had that had much effect on their patients, and while we now have many more tools, the right words, spoken in the right way, can have profound effects on how we feel and how we think about our health.
The Healing Mind wants to acknowledge not only the wisdom and knowledge, but the mastery and artistry that goes into every relaxation, guided imagery, and mind/body audio healing product we offer. While our emphasis is on teaching people skills that lead to relaxation, reduced stress, and enhanced healing abilities, we would be mistaken to ignore the love, thought, and experience that goes into a CD by any of our experts or authors.
As you are guided in our audio journeys into states that are more relaxed and that facilitate healing, you will probably find that you prefer some voices and some phrasing to others. And while you will be learning processes that you can use whenever you want to, you may also find that some of these journeys are soothing, comforting, and symptom relieving because of not only the ideas, but the feelings that the author conveys through their voice. All of our authors are clinicians who, over decades of experience, have cultivated their ability to tone, phrase, and nurture healing responses in people through their words and voices. They have created their products in order to share that experience, ability, and wisdom with you in a form you can easily use and wish you good health and healing with every word.
"I believe that words are things. Someday we will be able to know and measure the … kindness that emanates from certain words that people exhume when they say certain things. I think they stick on the walls, they go into the upholstery, they go into your clothes, and finally into your very body." Maya Angelou
Posted in Blog
Science and Mind/Body Healing
The institution of medicine bases much of it’s authority on the claim that it is a scientific discipline, and it rightly looks for scientific proof underlying clams of therapeutic effectiveness. While this is a noble goal, the fact is that he day-to-day practice of medicine includes very little that is scientifically well proven and a good deal that is not proven at all. The “gold standard” of scientific proof is the double-blind randomized controlled study. In such a study, neither patients receiving treatments nor the doctors administrating treatments know what the patient is getting. The outcome is assessed by independent analysts who don’t know whether patients received real or placebo treatments. These extreme measures to maintain secrecy are taken because if either the patient or the physicians knows whether they are getting active treatment, this will influence the results. When you think about it, this is the strongest eveidence there is for the power of belief and expectation in healing.
While double-blind studies are the most definitive type of study, very few clinical studies are of this design. In fact, as recently as 1976, fewer than 5 percent of original research articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Lancet were based on controlled matched studies of any kind. Only a fraction of that small percentage were double blind. In 2003 I reviewed articles over the previous 4 years in those same journals and found that about 10% of all the clinical studies published there were double-blinded. All three journals refused to publish my article, saying that they didn't see whay that was important. In case it's not obvious, I think it's important because we often hear criticism of mind/body approaches based on the lack of double-blind studies and we should know to what this "lack" is being compared.
The fact is, if doctors were to limit themselves to using only treatments that have been conclusively proven worthwhile through double-blind studies, they would prescribe very little treatment at all. Yet because our patients are suffering, we must often use our best judgment in suggesting other less rigorously proven treatment. Ideally, we choose from remedies that have a long history of effectiveness and safety in clinical experience or, if no such option is available, from newer methods whose potential benefits outweigh their potential risks by a large enough margin. This conflict between necessity and certainty in treatment is so fundamental to medical practice that it is addressed on page one of Harrison’s Textbook of Internal Medicine, one of the most widely used medical textbooks in print. Harrison says:
"In the practice of medicine the physician employs a discipline which seeks to utilize scientific methods and principles in the solution of its problems, but is one which, in the end, remains an art…in the sense that the practicing physician can never be content with the sole aim and clarifying the laws of nature; he cannot proceed in his labors with the cool detachment of the scientist whose aim is the winning of truth, and who, theoretically, is uninterested in the practical outcome of his work. The practicing physician must never forget that his primary and traditional objectives are utilitarian — the prevention and cure of disease and the relief of suffering, whether of body or mind."
Faced with illness, distress, and uncertainty, the informed patient and the practicing physician must often consider options that may not be rigorously proven as they attempt to formulate a sensible plan for treatment and self-care. Even simple clinical research on human beings is difficult because of the many influences on outcome that cannot be controlled. Add to this the difficulty of trying to determine what an individual is really thinking, and we are faced with the very real possibility that it may never be possible to conclusively prove or disprove the theory that thoughts can ameliorate or cure disease. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use them.
Posted in Blog
Celebrex, Glucosamine, Imagery, and Pain relief
A recent study of glucosamine for osteoarthritis was reported in news media as being both effective and not effective, which illustrates that we really need to look at studies with some depth in order to tell what they really show. The study showed that glucosamine was no better than placebo for relieving knee pain from osteoarthritis, and not as good as Celebrex, and that's what some news agencies including the NY Times reported.(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/health/23arthritis.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=38b9b1393d32311e&ex=1149998400)
But the study also showed that for the 30% or so of patients with the most severe pain levels, the glucosamine along with chondroitin DID relieve pain better than placebo, and about as well as Celebrex, so some other sources focused on this finding of effectiveness. (http://www.medpagetoday.com/Rheumatology/Arthritis/tb/2728?pfc=101&spc=230)
So we need to consider our sources when we evaluate medical studies. But what is even MORE interesting is that while 70% of the people taking Celebrex and 64% of those taking glucosamine got good pain relief, 60% of the people taking a placebo (with no active ingredients) also got good pain relief. In other words, THINKING that you are taking something for your arthritis accounts for over 85% of the effectiveness of actually taking a powerful and somewhat risky medicine!
What this study actually showed is that there is a very small statistical advantage to taking Celebrex over either glucosamine or placebo in terms of effectiveness, but glucosamine and placebo have minimal if any adverse effects (yes, there can be negative effects of placebo, too). Please understand that I am not anti-medicine, and actually think Celebrex is probably a pretty good medicine in certain situations, but we shouldn't ignore that Celebrex can cause ...well, see below for a warning about potential side effects from a Celebrex advertisement.
"Side effects cannot be anticipated. If any develop or change in intensity, inform your doctor as soon as possible. Only your doctor can determine if it is safe for you to continue taking Celebrex. More common side effects may include: Abdominal pain, diarrhea, headache, indigestion, nausea, respiratory infection, sinus inflammation
Less common side effects may include: Back pain, dizziness, gas, insomnia, rash, runny nose, sore throat, swelling Rare side effects may include: Allergic reactions, anxiety, belching, blisters in mouth and eyes, blood disorders, blood infections, blurred vision, bone disorders, breast pain, breast problems, bronchitis, cataracts, chest pain, colitis, conjunctivitis (pinkeye), constipation, coughing, cysts, dark-tarry stools, deafness, depression, dermatitis, diabetes, difficult urination, difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, drowsiness, dry mouth, dry skin, earache, ear infection, ear ringing, esophageal perforation, eye infection, eye pain, fainting, fatigue, fever, flu symptoms, fungal infection, gallstones, gangrene, general swelling, glaucoma (pressure in the eye), hair loss, heart failure, heart irregularities, hemorrhoids, hepatitis, hernia of the stomach, herpes infection, hives, hot flashes, increased appetite, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, increased muscle tone, increased urination, infection, inflammation of the digestive tract, inflammation of the bladder, inflammation of the blood vessels, intestinal bleeding, intestinal obstruction or perforation, itching, jaundice, joint pain or inflammation, kidney problems, laryngitis, leg cramps, liver problems, loss of appetite, loss of balance, low blood sugar, menstrual disorders, migraine headache, mouth ulcers, muscle ache, nail disorders, neck stiffness, nerve pain, nervousness, nosebleeds, pain, painful urination, pancreatitis, phlebitis, pneumonia, poor coordination, prostate problems, severe diarrhea, severe skin rash and peeling, skin reaction due to sunlight, skin sensitivity, skin tingling, stroke, suicide, sweating, swollen face and throat, taste disturbances, tendonitis, tiredness, tooth disorders, urinary incontinence, urinary tract infections, vaginal problems, vomiting, weakness, weight gain"
I underlined some the rare reactions just so we notice that some of these rare reactions are quite serious, even fatal. There are no fatalities that have ever been attributed to glucosamine or placebo.
Celebrex costs about $1-2 a day, glucosamine costs about 35-50 cents a day, and placebo costs...nothing.
"Placebo effect" is a much misunderstood phenomenon in medicine. It's a real effect, accounts for a huge amount of positive responses to all treatments, and actually, is the only reason we do extraordinarily expensive, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies - because it's THAT difficult to eliminate the effects of positive expectation from the healing equation. Researchers want to eliminate the placebo effect, but as patients and health professionals, we want to maximize its effects.
After all, if we can be "tricked" into healing, why can't we learn to turn it on ourselves?
Posted in Blog
The Power of Positive Expectant Faith
I noticed with interest how many people began to feel better the instant they took the first dose of a medication known to take hours, days, or even weeks to begin working pharmacologically — not to mention how many times people began to feel better as soon as I wrote their prescriptions! No one knows exactly how these effects come about, but they are everyday occurrences in medicine. It has been determined that the placebo effect is responsible for over half the action of some of our most powerful and trusted drugs and much of the action of any therapy — alternative or conventional, medical, surgical, or psychological.
Belief can not only draw positive reactions from neutral substances, it can even cause people to react in opposition to the pharmacologic effects of a medication. A physician reported giving syrup of ipecac to two patients with severe nausea and vomiting. Ipecac is a very powerful emetic (it induces vomiting) and is usually given to people who have swallowed poison in an effort to clear their stomachs. In this case, the patients were told that the ipecac was a very strong medicine that would soothe their stomachs and stop their vomiting — and it did.
The power of expectation and faith affects even surgical outcomes. In the 1950s there was a good deal of enthusiasm in the medical community about an operation that was quite successful in relieving chest pain (angina pectoris) and improving heart function in men with blockage in their coronary arteries. The operation involved making an incision next to the breastbone and tying off a relatively superficial artery, which theoretically shunted more blood to the arteries supplying the heart. Most of the patients who underwent this procedure improved dramatically, experiencing both relief of pain and an improvement in heart function. Then a controlled study was done on the operation. A matched group of men with similar angina were brought to the operating room, they were anesthetized, and a surgical incision was made. Half of these men, however, were sewn up again without having anything else done. After surgery, they experienced the same dramatic relief of anginal pain and enjoyed the same improvement in heart muscle functioning as the men who underwent the real operation.
To call an effect “placebo” does not mean that the patient’s response stems from the patient’s belief in the therapy rather than from the therapy itself. What is important about the placebo response is that it demonstrates beyond a doubt that thoughts can trigger the body’s self-healing abilities.
Somehow, under certain conditions, our intentions, desires, and beliefs in recovery are translated into physical healing. What are the conditions that allow this to happen? If we can be “tricked” into healing, why couldn’t we learn to heal “on purpose”?
From Guided Imagery for Self-Healing
Posted in Blog
Addictions
Guided imagery can help in many ways with addictions and changing health damaging habits. "Relaxing Into Healing" helps relieve tension that often triggers cravings, and helps relieve withdrawal symptoms. teaches you to go inside and listen to your body and inner wisdom, identifying other ways to fill the needs that may surface after you are drug, smoke, or alcohol free. "Tools to Change Your Life" teaches you a remarkably effective way to make the changes you want to make in your life to turn your desire to quit into reality, and "Creating Wellness" helps you form a vision of yourself enjoying high level wellness that can inspire, and motivate you throughout the process. The Guided Imagery for Self-Healing book gives you the information you need to work effectively with the CDs, and the book and the 4 CD set of the same title will teach you all of the above skills and provide in-depth guidance through the process of using your imagination to help you get clean and sober. For a quick start, especially if you find reading difficult or inconvenient, try ,"Self-Healing with Guided Imagery", a 2 CD set featuring Dr. Andrew Weil, that explains guided imagery on one CD then teaches you three fundamental imagery skills that can give you a taste of what guided imagery can do for you. If anxiety is a big problem for you, you may also want to try "Anxiety Relief", or our "Stress Relief" CD that will teach you additional imagery skills to keep your stress or anxiety to a more manageable level. All the guided imagery processes are compatible and complementary to 12-step and other addiction recovery programs, and help you work from within to change your life for the better.
Posted in Health Issues Wellness & Lifestyle
Angiogram
Angiography is an important medical procedure for diagnosing and treating blockage of the arteries, especially the coronary (heart) arteries. Angiography is frequently accompanied by anxiety before the procedure and research shows that pre-angiography preparation with relaxation and guided imagery reduces anxiety and complication rates from the procedures. To be more relaxed and allow the procedure to go more easily, use our “Preparing for Surgery” or “Anxiety Relief” CD once or twice a day for 5 days or so before your procedure.
- RESEARCH
The Role of Angiography
The value of these procedures is unquestioned; most cardiologists recommend an angiography for any patient having surgery on blood vessels Angiography is also useful for both immediate diagnostic purposes and can sometimes predict future problems (Grossman, 1986). Angioplasty can treat some blocked arteries, allowing some patients to avoid surgery.
Angiography is a widely performed procedure, costing upwards of $3500 for an uncomplicated coronary arteriogram in 1999 (Society of Nuclear Medicine, 2002). Two million angiographies with contrast materials were performed in American hospitals in 2001; there were 1.27 million cardiac catheterizations performed (Popovic,& Hall, 2001 ).
Patient Anxiety
Patient anxiety can be a significant problem in invasive cardiac procedures. According to Lang and Hamilton (1994): “Insufficient treatment of pain and anxiety can cause cardiovascular strain and restlessness, which may jeopardize the success of the procedure. On the other hand, pharmacologic oversedation [over-medication] can provoke respiratory and cardiovascular depression, thereby increasing the procedural risks and delaying the patient's recovery.”
High levels of patient anxiety can prolong procedures and can increase need for sedation and pain medication, and increase risks of complication (Lang & Hamilton; Lang, Joyce, Spiege, Hamilton & Lee, 1996).
Non-drug treatment of patient anxiety
One of the simplest and least expensive ways to alleviate patient anxiety is the use of specially selected music (McCaffrey, Taylor, 2005; Thorgaard, Henriksen, Pedersbaek, Thomsen, 2004). Massage prior to a procedure is also useful (McNamara, Burnham, Smith, Carroll, 2003).
Among the most effective non-drug approaches to reducing patient anxiety are relaxation with guided imagery (self-hypnosis) and pre-procedure provision of information (Lang & Hamilton, 1994; Lang, Joyce et al, 1996; Ludwick-Rosenthal & Neufeld, 1993). Pre-procedure teaching, tailored to each patient's coping style, can reduce tachycardia and other signs of distress during procedures (Ludwick-Rosenthal & Neufeld; Wilson, Moore, Randolph & Hanson, 1982).
Mind-body approaches, especially those incorporating guided imagery, relaxation, or self-hypnosis, can result in shorter procedures, less need for medication, lower anxiety, and fewer complications (Lang & Hamilton, 1994; Lang, Joyce et al, 1996; Ludwick-Rosenthal & Neufeld, 1993; Fick, Lang, Logan, Lutgendorf & Benotsch, 1999). Self-hypnosis (guided imagery) was effective even in patients with low hypnotizability scores (Fick et al). In a study where patients develop their own images (“interactive imagery”), it was more effective than pre-scripted imagery presented to patients (Fick et al,). Similar benefits have been found for imagery and self-hypnosis in other procedures including endoscopy and MRI (Friday, Kubal, 1990; Zimmeran, 1998).
References
Fick LJ, Lang EV, Logan HL, Lutgendorf S, Benotsch EG. Imagery content during nonpharmacologic analgesia in the procedure suite: where your patients would rather be. Acad Radiol, 1999 Aug;6(8):457-63.
Friday PJ, Kubal WS. Magnetic resonance imaging: improved patient tolerance utilizing medical hypnosis. Am J Clin Hypn, 1990 Oct;33(2):80-84.
Grossman W. Cardiac Catheterization: Historical Perspective and Present Practice” in Cardiac Catheterization and Angiography 3rd Edition Grossman W ed. Philadelphia, Lea & Febiger 1986 pp.6-14.
Hlatky MA, Rogers WJ, Johnstone I, Boothroyd D, Brooks MM, Pitt B, Reeder G, Ryan T, Smith H, Whitlow P, Wiens R, Mark DB. Medical care costs and quality of life after randomization to coronary angioplasty or coronary bypass surgery. Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation (BARI) Investigators. N Engl J Med, 1997 Jan 9;336(2):92-9.
Lang EV, Hamilton D. Anodyne imagery: an alternative to i.v. sedation in interventional radiology. AJR Am J Roentgenol, 1994 May;162(5):1221-6.
Lang EV, Joyce JS, Spiegel D, Hamilton D, Lee KK. Self-hypnotic relaxation during interventional radiological procedures: effects on pain perception and intravenous drug use. Int J Clin Exp Hypn, 1996 Apr;44(2):106-19.
Ludwick-Rosenthal R, Neufeld RW. Preparation for undergoing an invasive medical procedure: interacting effects of information and coping style. J Consult Clin Psychol, 1993 Feb;61(1):156-64.
McCaffrey R, Taylor N. Effective anxiety treatment prior to diagnostic cardiac catheterization. Holist Nurs ract. 2005 Mar-Apr;19(2):70-3. Review.
McNamara ME, Burnham DC, Smith C, Carroll DL. The effects of back massage before diagnostic cardiac catheterization. Altern Ther Health Med. 2003 Jan-Feb;9(1):50-7.
Popovic JR, Hall MJ. 1999 National Hospital Discharge Survey. Advance data from vital and health statistics; no 319. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2001.
Society of Nuclear Medicine www.snm.org/about/press_releases/card_press.html Accessed January, 2002.
Thorgaard B, Henriksen BB, Pedersbaek G, Thomsen I. Specially selected music in the cardiac laboratory-an important tool for improvement of the wellbeing of patients. Eur J Cardiovasc Nurs. 2004 Apr;3(1):21-6.
Wilson JF, Moore RW, Randolph S, Hanson BJ. Behavioral preparation of patients for gastrointestinal endoscopy: information, relaxation, and coping style. J Human Stress, 1982 Dec;8(4):13-23.
Zimmerman J. Hypnotic technique for sedation of patients during upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. Ám J Clin Hyp, 1998 40(4): 284-7.
Posted in Health Issues
Anxiety & Stress
Anxiety, whether in the form of worry, nervousness, or panic, is common in our culture, and very problematic. When we worry, the body prepares for "fight or flight," putting in motion a chain of physiological effects that can leave us exhausted, depressed, or physically ill. Our "Anxiety Relief" CD shows you how to reverse this debilitating state through relaxation and specific guided imagery techniques. For a more in-depth training, our "Guided Imagery for Self-Healing" book and 4 CD set will teach you all the fundamental skills of using guided imagery to help stimulate healing from within. The book will explain the process, review the science behind it, and coach you through the common questions that people have, while the CD set guides you through the 9 essential guided imagery skills taught in the book. There is a good deal of research that demonstrates the benefit of relaxation and guided imagery in relieving and managing anxiety.
Posted in Health Issues Stress & Anxiety
Arthritis Pain
Pain, along with fatigue, is the most common complaint heard by any physician or primary health care professional. Chronic pain is pain that persists beyond the length expected from an injury, and can become a difficult problem in itself. A good deal of medical research shows that many people can reduce or relieve pain successfully with relaxation and guided imagery. Our Pain Relief CD will teach you three frequently effective methods of reducing pain through the mind/body connection, and the Guided Imagery for Self-Healing book and 4 CD set will teach you all the fundamental skills of using guided imagery to help stimulate healing from within. The book will explain the process, review the science behind it, and coach you through the common questions that people have, while the CD set guides you through the 9 essential guided imagery skills taught in the book. We recommend reading the book no matter what CDs you choose, but if you prefer to just listen rather than read, you may want to start with Self Healing with Guided Imagery, a 2 CD set featuring Dr. Andrew Weil. The first CD explains mind/body healing and guided imagery while the second teaches you three self-healing skills.
Guided imagery can help with the pain, stiffness, and disability associated with both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, according to the latest research. Our "Guided Imagery for Self-Healing" book and 4 CD set will teach you all the fundamental skills of using guided imagery to help stimulate healing from within. The book will explain the process, review the science behind it, and coach you through the common questions that people have, while the CD set guides you through the 9 essential guided imagery skills taught in the book. If you prefer to listen rather than read, you may want to start with "Self-Healing with Guided Imagery", a 2 CD set featuring Dr. Andrew Weil. The first CD explains mind/body healing and guided imagery while the second teaches you three self-healing skills. The Pain Relief CD will teach you a number of additional guided imagery skills aimed at reducing pain.
Posted in Health Issues Pain Relief
Asthma
Asthma is a growing problem in the developed world, with 20 million American adults and 9 million children suffering from its restriction of breathing through inflammation of the airways. A good deal of medical research shows that relaxation and guided imagery can help reduce asthma wheezing, airway obstruction, anxiety, medication usage and complications. Our Guided Imagery for Self-Healing book and 4 CD set will teach you all the fundamental skills of using guided imagery to help stimulate healing from within. The book will explain the process, review the science behind it, and coach you through the common questions that people have, while the CD set guides you through the 9 essential guided imagery skills taught in the book. If you prefer to listen rather than read, you may want to start with "Self-Healing with Guided Imagery", a 2 CD set featuring Dr. Andrew Weil. The first CD explains mind/body healing and guided imagery while the second teaches you three self-healing skills. Because anxiety is a frequent problem with asthma, our Anxiety Relief CD can be very useful as well.
RESEARCH
Guided Imagery for Asthma
November, 2005
Prevalence and Costs
According to the American Lung Association, asthma is a large, growing, and expensive health problem in all industrialized countries. As of 2003, the CDC estimated that 20.7 million Americans adults and 9.1 children have asthma; the condition generated 12.9 million office visits; in 2002, asthma occasioned 1.7 emergency room visits, and caused 4261 deaths in this country (CDC).
According to the Labor Occupational Safety & Health Administration, 15% of disabling asthma cases are work related. Occupational asthma is the most common type of occupational lung disease in the industrialized nations (Rabatin, 2001). Workers with asthma are twice as likely to retire early; they have higher rates of absenteeism, and they rate their ability to work and their general health as poorer than non-asthmatic workers (Sauni, Oksa, Vattulainen, Uitti, Palmroos, Roto, 2001). Baking, electronics, chemical and metal manufacturing, paints and plastics, farming, and house cleaning are the highest risk occupations (Rabatin; Sauni et al).
What is asthma?
Asthma has several causes, including genetic sensitivity, exposure to environmental irritants, and stress responses leading to “hyper-responsiveness” and bronchial inflammation. Both Inflammation and excess mucus production can close airways, thus making exhaling difficult. This cycle is difficult to stop once it is established.
Medical treatment
Customary treatment includes daily inhaled steroid medication, an as-needed bronchodilator for use during attacks, and education to avoid environmental asthma “triggers.” Sometimes, oral medications are prescribed. However, non-compliance is a major issue, particularly with inhalers. In some studies, 70% of patients (Rand, Wise, 1994) either failed to take inhalers as prescribed, or never filled the prescription (Piecoro, Potoski, Talbert, Doherty, 2001).
Non-pharmacologic treatment including imagery
According to researchers Bloomberg and Chen at St. Louis Children's Hospital, "The mind-body paradigm that links psychologic stress to disease is necessary when considering the global evaluation of childhood asthma." The mind-body connection is important in adult asthma, as well.
Mind-body techniques and behavioral modification can be used to control inflammation and spasms. In two studies, hypnosis reduced hyperresponsiveness and increased forced expiratory volume in highly hypnotizable subjects; results were maintained at one year follow up (Ewer, Stewart, 1986). In another study (n=250), 59% of those in the hypnosis group who received positive suggestion were “much better,” compared with 40% of a group who only received relaxation training (Maher-Loughna, Macdonald, Mason, Fry, 1962).
Like hypnosis, guided imagery uses both relaxation and affirmative suggestion. “Self-hypnosis,” “auto-hypnosis,” and "guided imagery" are used almost interchangeably in the literature (Olness, 1981). A meta-analysis of previous studies conducted in 2000 showed that hypnosis had definite, long-term effectiveness in asthma. This effectiveness was helped when patients used self-hypnosis (Hackman, Stern, Gershwin, 2000). In one pediatric study (n=303), some patient’s symptoms resolved after one hypnosis session, 80% had measurable improvement, and no children's symptoms worsened (Anbar, 2002). In another pediatric study of self-hypnosis positive results were recorded in 13 patients in follow-up (mean, 9 months) and two were asymptomatic and able to discontinue medication (Anbar, 2001). Pediatric compliance in taking peak flow measurements increased when the children received a combination of education and hypnosis (Lehrer, Feldman, Giardino, Song, Schmaling, 2002). Adult asthmatics who listened to imagery tapes had lower levels of depression and anxiety, and were able to reduce their medication (Report, 1997).
According to a 2005 review of the hypnosis literature conducted by Mayo Clinic physician James H. Steward, no fewer than five studies showed positive results for asthma patients using hypnosis; results included a large multicenter trial with hypnosis patients reporting a "significant decrease" in failed treatments and an even larger number deemed "much improved" (Hypnosis for asthma, 1968); in another study, 54% of patients who used hypnosis had "excellent" results and 21% became asymptomatic and were able to discontinue medication (Collison, 1975).
In the Freeman and Welton 2005 study, the results were contrary to the researchers' hypothesis when it was shown that biologically targeted imagery was more efficacious than critical thinking asthma management.
Team or combination approaches in asthma management can be beneficial, as with Stanford University School of Medicine's multicomponent program (Shames, Sharek, Mayer, Robinson, Hoyte, Gonzalez-Hensley, Bergman, Umetsu, 2004). Remarkable improvement occurred in Anbar and Hummell's multicomponent approach which incorporates hypnosis; 82% of their patients showed either improvement or resolution of their primary symptoms.
REFERENCES
Anbar RD, Hummell KE. Teamwork approach to clinical hypnosis at a pediatric pulmonary center. Am J Clin Hypn. 2005 Jul;48(1):45-9.
Anbar R D. Hypnosis in pediatrics: applications at a pediatric pulmonary center. BMC Pediatr. 2002 Dec 3;2(1):11
Anbar RD. Self-hypnosis for management of chronic dyspnea in pediatric patients. Pediatrics. 2001 Feb;107(2):E21.
Bloomberg GR, Chen E. The relationship of psychologic stress with childhood asthma. Immunol Allergy Clin North Am. 2005 Feb;25(1):83-105.
Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics. Asthma. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/asthma.htm Accessed November, 2005.
Collison DR. Which asthmatic patients should be treated by hypnotherapy? Med J Aust. 1975;1:776-781.
Ewer TC, Stewart DE. Improvement in bronchial hyper-responsiveness in patients with moderate asthma after treatment with a hypnotic technique: a randomized controlled trial. British Medical Journal.1986 Nov 1; 293(6555) 1129-32.
Family Guide to Asthma and Allergies. (1997). American Lung Association Asthma Advisory Group with Norman Edelman, MD. Little, Brown.
Freeman LW, Welton D., Effects of imagery, critical thinking, and asthma education on symptoms and mood state in adult asthma patients: a pilot study. J Altern Complement Med. 2005 Feb;11(1):57-68.
Hackman RM, Stern JS, Gershwin ME. Hypnosis and asthma: a critical review. Journal of Asthma. 2000; Feb 37(1): 1–15.
[no authors listed] Hypnosis for asthma—a controlled trial: a report to the Research Committee of the British Tuberculosis Association. Br Med J. 1968;4:71-76.
Kohen D P. Applying hypnosis in a preschool family asthma education program: uses of storytelling, imagery and relaxation. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. 1997; 39 (3): 169-81.
Lehrer P, Feldman J, Giardino N, Song H, Schmaling K. Psychological aspects of asthma. Journal of Consulting and Psychology. 2002 70(3):691-711.
Lewith GT; Watkins AD. Unconventional therapies in asthma: an overview. Allergy, 1996 Nov, 51(11):761-9.
Maher-Loughna GP, Macdonald N, Mason AA, Fry L. Controlled trial of hypnosis in the symptomatic treatment of asthma. British Medical Journal. 1962 (2): 371-76.
Morrison JB. Chronic asthma and improvement with relaxation induced by hypnotherapy. J R Soc Med. 1988;81:701-704.
National Center for Health Statistics. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/asthma.htm Accessed November, 2005.
Olness K. Imagery (self-hypnosis) as adjunct therapy in childhood cancer. Am. Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. 1981 3 (3) 313-320.
Piecoro LT, Potoski M, Talbert JC, Doherty DE. Asthma prevalence, cost, and adherence with expert guidelines on the utilization of healthcare services and costs in a state Medicaid population. Health Services Research. 2001, June; 36(2): 357-71.
Rabatin JT. A guide to the treatment of occupational asthma. Clin Proc (Mayo Clinic). 2001 June 76(6):633-40.
Rand CS, Wise RA. Measuring adherence to asthma medication regimens. Am J Resp Crit Care Med. 1994 149: S69-76.
Report. Alternative Health practitioner: The Journal of Complementary and Natural Care Fall/Winter, 1997 3 (3).
Sauni R, Oksa P, Vattulainen K, Uitti J, Palmroos P, Roto P. The effects of asthma on the quality of life and employment of construction workers. Occupational Medicine (London), 2001 May 51 (3): 163-7.
Shames RS, Sharek P, Mayer M, Robinson TN, Hoyte EG, Gonzalez-Hensley F, Bergman DA, Umetsu DT. Effectiveness of a multicomponent self-management program in at-risk, school-aged children with asthma. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2004 Jun;92(6):611-8.
Stewart JH. Hypnosis in contemporary medicine. Mayo Clin Proc. 2005 Apr;80(4):511-24.
United States Department of Labor Department of Labor Occupational Safety & Health Administration. www.osha.gov/SLTC/occup