IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)

For more that 25 years hypnotherapy has been proven scientifically and medically to help the presenting symptoms of IBS. Hypnotherapy is a recognised treatment of IBS option for patients, proven time and again to help mitigate the emotional and physical symptoms of the IBS patient. The NHS NICE guidelines recommend CBT and Hypnotherapy as effective treatments of IBS.

People with IBS present with varying symptom profiles, most commonly 'diarrhoea predominant', 'constipation predominant' or alternating symptom profiles. IBS most often affects people between the ages of 20 and 30 years and is twice as common in women as in men. Prevalence in the general population is estimated to be between 10% and 20%. Recent trends indicate that there is also a significant prevalence of IBS in older people. The aims of both CBT and hypnotherapy are to enable self-reliance for the suffer, to enable them to take back control of their own body.

The NICE Clinical Practice Guidelines (National Institute for Clinical excellence)  for treatment of IBS actually recommends hypnotherapy, CBT and other psychological therapy after 12 months of non-effective drug therapy.

Hypnotherapy routinely produces long term positive results in over 80% of the people who use it.

Hypnotherapy is often thought to be therapy that only affects the mind, but as mind and body are inseparably joined, hypnosis can also help physical ailments.

Henry Maudsley is quoted as saying “Emotions that find no outlet make the organs weep”.  For Irritable Bowel Syndrome, one of hypnotherapy's greatest benefits is its well-established ability to reduce the effects of stress and anxiety. Your state of mind can have a direct impact on your physical well-being, even when you're in the best of health. If you're struggling with IBS, the tension, anxiety, and depression that comes from living with an incurable illness can actually undermine your immune system and further compromise your health.

Hypnosis can reduce this stress and its resultant negative impact by placing you in a deeply relaxed state, promoting positive thoughts and coping strategies, and clearing your mind of negative attitudes.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome in fact is almost uniquely suited to treatment by hypnosis or self-hypnosis, for several reasons. First, as just noted, stress-related attacks can be significantly reduced. Second, one of the most impressive aspects from hypnotherapy, and of tremendous benefit to IBS sufferers, is its well-documented ability to relieve virtually all types and degrees of pain. Finally, because IBS is not a disease at all but a syndrome, if you can relieve and prevent the symptoms, you have effectively cured yourself of the disorder, and you will be living an IBS-free life. This outcome is a definite possibility from hypnotherapy treatments.

As with other alternative therapies, though there is solid evidence that hypnotherapy can provide lasting health benefits for many patients, there is uncertainty about precisely how and why the treatments work. Most scientists believe that hypnotherapy acts upon the unconscious, and affects the body's regulation of involuntary reactions that are normally beyond a person's control. Hypnosis puts these autonomic responses under the patient's power. Happily, treatment is suitable for people of all ages, for males and females, and there are no risks or side effects.

When you are ready to make the inner changes you need to overcome your IBS, just Click here to email or phone us on 0121 251 6172 to make an appointment now