The science is in. So why isn’t hypnotherapy everywhere yet?

By Kylie Gallaher, Clinical Hypnotherapist | Newcastle Clinical Hypnotherapy

If you’ve ever mentioned hypnotherapy in a conversation, you’ll know the two reactions it tends to get. Some people lean in, curious. Others picture a swinging watch and a stage performer making someone cluck like a chicken. What almost nobody pictures is what hypnosis actually is today: a well-researched clinical tool used alongside medicine and psychology to help people feel better and function better.

A recent paper in the Journal of Health Service Psychology, Clinical Hypnosis: A Contemporary, Evidence-Based Perspective (Elkins, Alldredge, Hood and Ekanayake, 2025), lays this out with care. Over the past two decades the research into clinical hypnosis has matured, adding both randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses. And yet, as the authors put it, the use of hypnosis in psychology, medicine and psychotherapy “lags behind its empirical support.”

In other words: the science has arrived. The awareness hasn’t quite caught up.

I want to talk about why that gap exists, what the evidence actually says, where the new wave of hypnotherapy apps fits in, and what all of this means here in Australia, because those are questions I am asked more and more.

First, what is hypnosis, really?

It helps to start with a definition, because much of the confusion comes from not having one. The American Psychological Association’s Division 30 (the Society of Psychological Hypnosis) defines hypnosis as “a state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness characterized by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion” and hypnotherapy as “the use of hypnosis in the treatment of a medical or psychological disorder or concern” (Elkins et al., 2015).

Read that again and notice what isn’t there. No loss of control. No sleep. No stage magic. Hypnosis is a natural, focused state, closer to being absorbed in a good book or a daydream, in which the mind becomes more open to helpful suggestion. Importantly, you learn to do it; it is not done to you. Much of the benefit comes from self-hypnosis, practised daily between sessions.

How strong is the evidence, really?

Stronger than most people assume, and, just as importantly, safe. On safety, a 2018 review of adverse events across registered clinical trials found zero serious adverse events attributable to hypnosis, with minor adverse events occurring in under half a percent of cases (Bollinger, 2018).

A large 2024 synthesis of 49 meta-analyses, covering 261 separate studies, reached a similar conclusion and found that side effects are no more common in people who receive hypnosis than in those who do not (Rosendahl et al., 2024). An earlier umbrella review had already described hypnosis as a safe intervention with robust evidence for pain, emotional distress and IBS, and for reducing medication use and the length of medical procedures (Häuser et al., 2016).

On credibility, in the United States the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health flagged hypnotherapy as a high-priority research topic in 2015, and by 2021 had named it a treatment of “high programmatic priority” (NCCIH, 2021). That same body formally recognises the evidence for hypnosis in the treatment of IBS, chronic pain, PTSD and hot flushes.

That is the backdrop. Now to the areas that matter most to the people we see.

Anxiety and Stress

This is the reason many people first walk through my door, and it is one of the best-supported uses of clinical hypnosis. Hypnosis works with the mind-body connection directly: it helps quieten the nervous system, interrupt the loop of anxious thinking, and teach your body what calm feels like again. In a 2023 international survey of nearly 700 hypnosis practitioners, at least 70% rated hypnosis “highly effective” for stress reduction, anxiety and wellbeing (Palsson et al., 2023). For a lot of people, that felt experience of settledness, sometimes for the first time in years, is the turning point.

Menopausal Hot Flushes

This is one of the most striking bodies of evidence in the whole field, and one of the most relevant to Australian women navigating menopause or the after-effects of breast cancer treatment. Randomised controlled trials have shown clinical hypnosis substantially reduces both the frequency and the severity of hot flushes (Elkins et al., 2008, 2013; MacLaughlan et al., 2013). In one trial, women practising clinical hypnosis saw their daily hot flushes fall by around 74%, compared with roughly 17% in the control group (Elkins et al., 2013).

Here is the part worth underlining. In the United States, the body now known as The Menopause Society (formerly the North American Menopause Society) concluded that cognitive behavioural therapy and clinical hypnosis are the only two behavioural treatments with enough evidence to be formally recommended for hot flushes (North American Menopause Society, 2023). And this is not only an American position. Closer to home, the Australasian Menopause Society also lists hypnosis among non-hormonal options, noting it can reduce the severity and frequency of hot flushes and help with anxiety and sleep (Australasian Menopause Society). For women who cannot take, or would rather avoid, hormone therapy, that is genuinely useful to know.

Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction, Including IBS

If you live with IBS or a related gut condition, you already know how real the gut-brain connection is. These conditions are now understood as disorders of gut-brain interaction, and gut-directed hypnotherapy is one of the most established applications of clinical hypnosis anywhere.

Australians can feel some local pride here. The low-FODMAP diet was developed at Monash University in Melbourne, and it was also a Monash team that ran a landmark trial comparing gut-directed hypnotherapy head-to-head with that diet. The finding: hypnotherapy was as effective as the low-FODMAP diet at relieving IBS symptoms, with benefits maintained six months later, and the hypnotherapy group saw the greatest improvement in the anxiety and low mood that so often travel with IBS (Peters et al., 2016). A systematic review pooling more than 460 people found hypnotherapy produced significantly greater short-term relief of gut symptoms than conventional care or diet alone (Schaefert et al., 2014). For people who have tried elimination diets and medications with limited relief, this can be a revelation.

Pain

Hypnosis has a long and well-studied track record in pain management, both acute and chronic, and pain is one of the areas where the meta-analytic evidence is strongest (Häuser et al., 2016; Rosendahl et al., 2024). It is increasingly used alongside medical treatment rather than instead of it. For chronic pain in particular, where the nervous system’s own alarm has become part of the problem, hypnosis offers a way to turn the volume down, and recent work shows that even self-hypnosis can help (Caron-Trahan et al., 2024).

Addiction and Dependencies

Smoking cessation is one of the three cases the paper puts forward, and it shows hypnosis working on a dependency in a particular way: not through white-knuckle willpower, but by loosening the patterns, triggers and beliefs that keep a habit running. The most recent meta-analysis of randomised trials found hypnotherapy significantly improves the odds of quitting smoking (Fauziyyah et al., 2022), and the research is clear that intensity matters: more sessions, personalised suggestions and proper support outperform a token single session (Elkins et al., 2006). The same strategic approach extends across dependencies, from smoking and vaping to gambling. At our clinic this is the focus of my colleague Romi Cristaudo, who brings clinical hypnosis together with Strategic Psychotherapy, EFT and more than twenty years in the wellness field to help people move from habit to freedom.

Trauma Recovery, and the Quieter Wins

Used carefully, within a properly paced and safe therapeutic relationship, hypnosis can support trauma recovery by helping people regulate their nervous system, build a sense of internal safety, and reprocess difficult material without becoming overwhelmed. This is skilled, individualised work, and it is exactly the kind of work that shows why who is guiding the process matters so much.

It is worth naming the quieter benefits too. Recent research links regular self-hypnosis to better sleep (Otte et al., 2020) and to improvements in self-esteem and emotional distress (Grégoire et al., 2021). These are the changes clients often mention almost in passing, and they add up.

Why does personalisation matter so much?

Here is a detail from the research that sits right at the heart of what I do. People differ in how readily they respond to hypnosis, and it turns out to matter. In one hot flush trial, women with moderate to high hypnotic ability saw significant results by week three, while those with lower hypnotic ability took until week twelve (Alldredge, Sliwinski et al., 2024). A skilled clinician assesses this and tailors the approach, the wording and the pace accordingly. A generic recording cannot.

The Right Tool for the Right Moment

There is one more advantage worth naming, and it is a human one. And one that I am particularly passionate about!

The research keeps returning to the same theme: hypnosis often works best not in isolation but woven together with other approaches. Adding hypnosis to cognitive and behavioural work tends to improve outcomes (Kirsch et al., 1995; Ramondo et al., 2021), and for menopausal hot flushes it is hypnosis and CBT that share the evidence base. That is exactly how Romi and I work. Our foundation is Strategic Psychotherapy, which brings the cognitive and behavioural principles the research supports, and each of us has trained in specialised hypnosis treatments (for example, gut-directed hypnotherapy), and well beyond hypnosis alone. My own toolkit includes Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Havening Techniques and Multichannel Eye Movement Integration (MEMI); Romi brings Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). This is not about collecting acronyms. It is about having the range, and the clinical judgement, to choose the right tool for the right moment and the person in front of us, rather than reaching for the only tool we own. A generic recording has one setting. A trained, curious human has many, and knows when to use each.

So why the gap?

If the evidence is this good, why isn’t hypnotherapy simply part of standard care?

The paper is candid about this. Part of it is history: hypnosis has spent a long time living down its stage-show reputation, and misconceptions still travel faster than the research. Part of it is training: tertiary offerings of formal instruction remains limited.  Specialised training institutions stand outside of tertiary educational institutions, and the quality varies. And the authors are clear that hypnotherapy is a specialty discipline in its own right, not a minor technique to be bolted onto other work over a weekend.

That reframing matters, so let me say it plainly. Clinical hypnotherapy is a profession. Doing it well takes dedicated qualifications, supervised practice and ongoing professional development, the same commitment any serious discipline demands.

Hypnotherapy in Australia is not yet a government-regulated profession, and that makes one thing especially important: who you choose to work with. Because anyone can call themselves a hypnotherapist, professional association membership is your safeguard. A hypnotherapist who belongs to a recognised professional association, in Australia an association under the Hypnotherapy Council of Australia, the industry’s peak body, has met defined training standards, carries insurance, works to a code of ethics and keeps their skills current. It is the clearest signal that you are in capable, accountable hands.

So when you are choosing a hypnotherapist, ask about their qualifications and their professional association. A dedicated practitioner will be glad you asked.

Where the Apps Come In

Here is the development the paper highlights, and one I find rather interesting: hypnotherapy apps. There is now a growing number of apps offering low-cost, on-demand self-hypnosis, and the early research is encouraging. A survey of people using one smoking-cessation app found that 58% felt it helped them reach their goal (Alldredge, Muñiz et al., 2024). The wider evidence also suggests hypnosis delivered remotely can be as effective as in-person work (Palsson et al., 2023).

This is good news, and I want to be clear about that. Anything that widens access to a well-evidenced tool is worth celebrating. For someone curious but not ready to book, who wants to practise between appointments, or who cannot easily get to a clinic, a quality app can be a wonderful place to start. For some people, that may be all they need, and that is a great outcome. The paper does add a sensible caveat: choose apps built on real evidence for the condition you are targeting, rather than whatever ranks highest in the app store.

But an app is, by its nature, generic. It plays the same session to everyone. And people are not generic. You are not generic.  You are you!

And the moment your situation has any complexity, whether that is layered anxiety and pain, trauma in the background, a gut condition tangled up with years of stress, or simply suggestions that need to be worded for you, a one-size-fits-all recording can only take you so far. This is where clinician-led, personalised hypnotherapy does something an app can’t: it listens first. We tailor the language, the pace, the imagery and the therapeutic goals to your history, your nervous system and what you actually want to change. We adjust in real time, hold a safe space if something difficult surfaces, and weave hypnosis together with the rest of what good therapy involves.

The best way to think about it isn’t apps versus therapists. It is a spectrum. Apps are a fantastic on-ramp and a great support tool. Personalised clinical hypnotherapy, with a qualified practitioner, is there for the people, and the problems, the generic version doesn’t reach.

A Note on Where This Evidence Comes From

One honest observation. Much of the flagship research, and several of the bodies named above, are North American: the funding priorities, the menopause position statement, the professional definitions. That does not weaken the evidence, but Australian readers deserve to know the picture holds here too. Our own Australasian Menopause Society recognises hypnosis for hot flushes, the defining IBS trial was run in Melbourne, and gut-directed hypnotherapy sits comfortably alongside international guidance. The science travels well.

The Takeaway

The research is telling us something worth hearing: clinical hypnosis is effective, evidence-based, safe and underused. If you have been quietly curious about it, whether for anxiety, for menopausal hot flushes, for a stubborn gut condition, for chronic pain, for a dependency you are ready to be free of, or as part of your trauma recovery, this is a good moment to take that curiosity seriously.

If an app helps you dip a toe in, wonderful. And if you reach a point where you want something built around you, that is exactly what our team is here for.

If you would like to talk about whether hypnotherapy could help with what you are carrying, we would love to hear from you. You can get in touch with Newcastle Clinical Hypnotherapy to book an initial conversation. No swinging watch required.

Selected Sources

Hypnotherapy is a complementary approach and is not a substitute for medical or psychological care. If you have a health concern, please also speak with your GP or treating practitioner.