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Women and Hypnosis: Finding the Fertility in Infertility
Helen Adrienne, MSW, LCSW
Hypnosis for the Treatment of Hot Flashes for Breast Cancer Survivors
Joel D. Marcus, PsyD

Full Day Advanced Workshop

Audio Sample:




Women and Hypnosis Finding the Fertility in Infertility
Helen Adrienne, MSW, LCSW

The inability to produce the next generation is an existential blow. Infertility patients are desperate to learn how to mind what matters: How can they escape from the frenzy that is launched with their diagnosis? Even those who are confident in their coping skills eventually despair that this is bigger than they are. The pain of loss of ability to reproduce is compounded many-fold by the rigors of medical treatment. Despite the growing numbers of couples who face this agony, there is no social protocol. Men and women find themselves at sea and even friends and relatives who mean well often make things worse. Therapists need to understand this complex gestalt.

There are many treatment options. After seeing the infertility map, attendees will be guided through the territory that is the world of the infertile. They will be exposed to the full panoply of treatment choices. Because what has been called "letting-go coping" (of which hypnosis is a part) has a statistically significant association to pregnancy rates, emphasis will be put on the value of this approach and my personal twist to it.
And there's more. Attendees will collaborate with patients so that will feel back in the driver's seat of their lives. They will recognize which important mind/body interventions to teach to which patients and demonstrate to patients that they can actually gain from the pain. While this workshop is about learning to deal with this adversity, participants will learn and thereby be able to teach effective methods of dealing with any adversity. Everyone is infertile in some way.

At the conclusion of this session, participants should be able to…

Recognize and describe the agony of infertility in all of its profundity and in the process
demonstrate appropriate sensitivity to the patient;

Construct trances that deepen the patients' power to intervene in their own mind/body process
for healing; and

Formulate reframes with the patient so that they can ride the wave of this tsunami rather than be
swamped by it

Hypnosis for the Treatment of Hot Flashes for Breast Cancer Survivors
Joel D. Marcus, PsyD

Hot flashes are a significant problem for many breast cancer survivors. Hot flashes are a significant problem for many breast cancer survivors. In fact, 78% of female chemotherapy recipients and 72% of tamoxifen recipients experience hot flashes. Hot flashes can cause discomfort, disrupted sleep, anxiety, and decreased quality of life. A well-tolerated and effective mind-body treatment for hot flashes would be of great value. On the basis of previous case studies1-2, this study was developed to evaluate the effect of a hypnosis intervention for hot flashes.

Patients and Methods

Sixty female breast cancer survivors with hot flashes were randomly assigned to receive hypnosis intervention (five weekly sessions) or no treatment. Eligible patients had to have a history of primary breast cancer without evidence of detectable disease and 14 or more weekly hot flashes for at least 1 month. The major outcome measure was a bivariate construct that represented hot flash frequency and hot flash score, which was analyzed by a classic sums and differences comparison. Secondary outcome measures were self-reports of interference of hot flashes on daily activities.

Results

Fifty-one randomly assigned women completed the study. By the end of the treatment period, hot flash scores (frequency _ average severity) decreased 68% from baseline to end point in the hypnosis arm (P _ .001). Significant improvements in self-reported anxiety, depression, interference of hot flashes on daily activities, and sleep were observed for patients who received the hypnosis intervention (P _ .005) in comparison to the no treatment control group.

Conclusion

Hypnosis appears to reduce perceived hot flashes in breast cancer survivors and may have additional benefits such as reduced anxiety and depression, and improved sleep.3

This workshop is based on an NCI funded study. At the conclusion of the workshop participants will be able to identify the following and describe how the implementation of the learning objectives may impact or change their current clinical practice:

Identify and describe treatment sequela to treatment of breast cancer that would be amenable to
hypnotic interventions;

Describe and implement a method of intervention generation that would be individualized to the
` patient; and

Formulate and implement two specific hypnotic interventions for this population