Hypnosedation: A valuable alternative to traditional anaesthetic techniques

Hypnosis has become routine practice in our plastic and endocrine surgery s ervices. Revivication of pleasant life experiences has served as the hypnot ic substratum in a series of over 1650 patients since 1992. In retrospectiv e studies, followed by randomised prospective studies, we have confirmed th e usefullness of hypnosedation (hypnosis in combination with conscious IV s edation) and local anaesthesia as a valuable alternative to traditional ana esthetic techniques. The credibility of hypnotic techniques and their acceptance by the scientif ic community will depend on independently-confumed and reproductible criter ia of assessing the hypnotic state. Based on the clinical success of this t echnique, we were interested in confirming this phenomenon in healthy volun teers. The revivication of pleasant life experiences thus served as the cor nerstone of a basic research program developed to objectify the neurophysio logical attributes of the hypnotic state. We compared hypnosis to normal al ertness with similar thought content. In our experience, the activation pro file obtained during the hypnotic state was completely different from simpl e re-memoration of the same subject matter during normal alertness. This re presents an objective and independent criteria by which to assess the hypno tic state.