Pain Relief
Hypnosis for Pain Relief: What 142 Trials and 9,238 Patients Found
Pain is the strongest ground hypnosis has. An umbrella review of 49 meta-analyses put pain and medical procedures at the very top of the list, and the largest single analysis — 142 studies, 9,238 patients, published in Anaesthesia this year — found less pain and less anxiety around procedures, and a drop in post-operative nausea and vomiting that is the best number in this entire field. It also found that the thing it set out to measure was not demonstrated. Both of those belong on the same page.
Pain that has not been diagnosed should be diagnosed, not relaxed.New pain, pain that is changing, pain that wakes you, or pain with weight loss, fever, numbness or weakness belongs with a doctor first. Hypnosis changes how you experience a signal. It does nothing about what is sending it.
Victoria’s Better Health Channel advises avoiding hypnosis if you have severe depression, psychosis, a drug or alcohol problem, or chronic pain a doctor has not yet investigated. That last one is the important one here.
Written by Ernest McLeodClinical hypnotherapist. An Adelaide practice, seeing clients across Australia by video. Fourteen years in practice. About Ernest →
I earn a commission when someone buys a session through this site. Every figure below carries its comparator, because a number without one is decoration, and because you should be able to check me.
Does hypnosis work for pain relief?
Start with the widest view anyone has taken. Rosendahl and colleagues published an umbrella review in 2024 covering 49 meta-analyses and 261 distinct primary studies. Their summary, in their own words: “Our findings underline the potential of hypnosis to positively impact various mental and somatic treatment outcomes, with the largest effects found in patients experiencing pain, patients undergoing medical procedures, and in populations of children/adolescents.”
That is a fair summary of where this field actually is. Two honest notes travel with it: effects across those 49 reviews ranged from essentially nothing to very large, only nine of the 49 rated highly on the AMSTAR 2 quality tool, and the lead author sits on the scientific board of the Milton H. Erickson Society Germany.
Underneath that umbrella, the procedural literature is the best-built part. Tefikow and colleagues pooled 34 randomised trials and 2,597 patients undergoing surgery or medical procedures. Against standard care, hypnosis produced an effect of g = 0.53 on emotional distress, g = 0.44 on pain, g = 0.38 on medication use, and smaller but real effects on recovery and on how long the procedure took. Holler and colleagues repeated the exercise across 50 studies and 4,269 patients: distress g = 0.55, pain g = 0.37, which translates to needing to treat about five people for one to benefit on pain.
Attach the caveat the authors attached, because it is the kind that usually gets dropped. In Holler’s analysis, the 95 per cent prediction intervals included the null effect for every outcome except procedure time. In plain terms: the average across those studies favours hypnosis, but you could not promise that the next trial run would.
How much does hypnosis reduce pain around a procedure?
Lahoud, Gurary and Elia published the largest analysis of hypnosis around medical procedures in Anaesthesia in 2026: 142 studies, 9,238 patients. Before the procedure, pain came down by 0.88 cm on a ten-centimetre scale and anxiety by a standardised 0.76. During the procedure, pain came down by 1.14 cm. And post-operative nausea and vomiting fell to a risk ratio of 0.43 — the single strongest result available anywhere in the hypnosis literature.
Now the other half. The review’s primary outcome was the use of hypnotic and opioid drugs, and that was not demonstrated. The authors’ own conclusion is that hypnosis “may” reduce peri-procedural pain and anxiety, and that “its impact on most outcomes remains unknown”. A page that quotes the nausea figure without that sentence is selling you a headline, not a finding.
One more, smaller and more recent: Walter and colleagues, 20 randomised trials and 1,250 patients, found anxiety down a standardised 0.43 and pain down 0.35 against control, and reported that “adverse effects were minimal”. The direction of travel in procedural pain is consistent across four independent teams. That consistency is the real argument.
Where the evidence runs out
In 2026 Yim and Derbyshire screened 17,525 records and pooled 106 studies on hypnosis for clinical pain. Against no treatment at all, across 57 studies and 4,572 people, hypnosis produced a standardised effect of −0.33. Small, but real, and consistent with everything above.
Then they compared it against things that are not nothing. Against plain relaxation, −0.13. Against simply teaching someone about their pain, −0.17. Against CBT, −0.32. It did not significantly beat a single one of them.
The same pattern shows up in burns, where it is cleanest. Scheffler and colleagues pooled 21 randomised trials and 660 patients: overall g = 0.58. Split by comparator, it was 0.69 against treatment as usual and 0.21 against an attention control — and the 0.21 was not statistically significant. The difference between those two comparisons was itself significant at p < 0.001.
So here is the honest boundary, in one sentence. Hypnosis reliably beats doing nothing for pain. It has not been shown to beat the cheaper, duller thing you could do instead — lying down, breathing slowly, someone explaining your pain to you properly. That is a finding about what the induction and the suggestion add, not an accusation that nothing happens. People in those trials felt better. The question is which ingredient did it.
Does a recording work as well as a hypnotherapist?
For pain, this is the one question where the evidence leans my way, and it is the best argument this site has. Where the two have been compared directly, a recording has performed comparably to a clinician — no detectable difference between self-hypnosis, therapist delivery, an in-person tape, therapist plus home practice, or virtual reality. Almost nobody selling recordings makes this argument, and it is the only one I would stand behind without qualification.
Yim and Derbyshire ran the delivery-format comparison themselves inside that 106-study review. Self-hypnosis, across 8 studies, came out at −0.24. Therapist-delivered, across 24 studies, −0.35. An in-person tape, across 9 studies, −0.33. Therapist plus self-practice, −0.39. Virtual reality, −0.31. The test for a difference between those formats returned p = 0.94. No detectable difference at all.
Montgomery and colleagues had tested the same thing directly back in 2002 across 20 controlled studies, comparing live induction against audiotape, and reported that “no significant differences were found between… methods of the induction of hypnosis”.
What that supports: where it has been tested in pain, a recording has performed comparably to a clinician. What it does not support: eight studies and nine studies are small subgroups, and a non-significant difference is not proof of equivalence. It also does not travel to other conditions — the nausea result, the surgical numbers and the IBS guideline recommendation were all produced by clinicians in rooms, with no recorded equivalent tested.
Is hypnosis for pain safe?
Bollinger went through the adverse events recorded in hypnosis clinical trials in 2018 and found serious adverse events attributable to hypnosis at zero per cent, and other adverse events at 0.47 per cent. The honest wording is that zero serious adverse events were reported in registered trials, not that none can occur — and the author names the limitation himself: those trials treated medical conditions and procedures, not psychiatric ones. Walter’s 2025 review reached the same place: “adverse effects were minimal.”
The practical cautions are the ordinary ones. Never listen at the wheel or anywhere else that needs your attention. Do not stop prescribed medication because a recording helped. And do not use any of this to postpone a diagnosis.
What actually happens in a session?
Less than the mythology suggests, and more than the sceptics allow. A recording walks you into a focused, relaxed state and then offers suggestions aimed at how you experience the sensation — its intensity, its edges, how much of your attention it is allowed to take. You stay aware and in control throughout. It is much closer to a guided meditation than to anything you have seen on a stage, and nobody is putting you under.
Hypnosis is associated with measurable changes in brain activity; that much is defensible. What is not defensible is “brain scans prove hypnosis works”. The imaging literature is inconsistent enough that a 2017 review of it concluded few reliable brain patterns emerge across studies. The case for hypnosis in pain rests on the trials, not the pictures.
Start where your pain actually is
The evidence is not one thing, so the answer is not one page. Three questions bring nearly everyone here, and each has a different answer.
| If your pain is… | Read | Why that page |
|---|---|---|
| Ahead of you — a procedure or operation is booked | Hypnosis before surgery | Because this is where the strongest numbers on this page live: 9,238 patients, less pre-procedure pain and anxiety, and post-operative nausea and vomiting at a risk ratio of 0.43. |
| Long-standing, and already investigated | Hypnosis for chronic pain | Because this is where the comparator problem bites hardest. Hypnosis beats no treatment here and has not been shown to beat relaxation or pain education, and you should know that before you spend. |
| Something you would rather manage yourself | Self-hypnosis for pain | Because the delivery-format evidence is the one part of this literature that transfers to a recording — and to your own practice, which costs nothing. |
| New, changing, or undiagnosed | A doctor, before anything on this site | Because hypnosis changes how you experience a signal and does nothing about what is sending it. Better Health Channel names uninvestigated chronic pain as a reason to avoid hypnosis. |
What is in the catalogue
There are 17 pain-relief sessions on this site, each US$18.95 — about A$27 — as a one-off instant download with ninety days to change your mind. They cover chronic pain management, general pain relief, lower back, knee, hip, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, neuropathic pain, myofascial pain, TMJ, frozen shoulder, shingles, phantom limb, CRPS, post-catheter pain, and fear of pain itself.
A word about that last one, because it is underrated. Across every review above, the effect on distress is consistently larger than the effect on pain — 0.53 against 0.44 in Tefikow, 0.55 against 0.37 in Holler. If you are going to spend money on one recording, the fear and the dread around the pain may be the more tractable target. That is not a claim about your condition. It is what the numbers keep saying.
What I will not tell you is that a recording is a treatment. It is a self-help audio session with a real but modest evidence base, sold by someone who would rather you knew the size of it before you paid than after.
Common questions
Does hypnosis work for pain relief?
Better than nothing, reliably. An umbrella review of 49 meta-analyses found the largest effects of hypnosis anywhere were in pain and medical procedures. But in the largest review of hypnosis for clinical pain — 106 studies, 2026 — it produced an effect of −0.33 against no treatment and did not significantly beat relaxation, pain education or CBT. It adds something over nothing, and has not been shown to add something over simpler alternatives.
How much pain relief does hypnosis actually give?
In the largest analysis — 142 studies and 9,238 patients in Anaesthesia, 2026 — pain before a procedure fell by 0.88 cm on a ten-centimetre scale and by 1.14 cm during it, against control. In surgical trials the standardised effect on pain sits around 0.37 to 0.44. These are modest, real average differences, not the elimination of pain.
Is hypnosis for pain relief safe?
It is low risk. A 2018 review of adverse events in hypnosis clinical trials found serious adverse events attributable to hypnosis at zero per cent and other adverse events at 0.47 per cent, and a 2025 review of 20 trials reported that adverse effects were minimal. The author of the 2018 review notes those trials treated medical rather than psychiatric conditions. Never listen while driving.
Do hypnosis recordings work as well as seeing a hypnotherapist for pain?
For pain, the evidence says there is no detectable difference. Yim and Derbyshire compared self-hypnosis, therapist-delivered hypnosis, in-person tape, therapist plus self-practice and virtual reality inside their 2026 review, and the test for a difference between formats returned p = 0.94. The subgroups were small, and a non-significant difference is not proof of equivalence — but it is the best format evidence that exists.
Can hypnosis replace pain medication?
No, and do not stop anything you have been prescribed. The largest review’s primary outcome was drug use, and it was not demonstrated; the authors wrote that hypnosis’s impact on most outcomes remains unknown. Earlier surgical reviews did find a modest reduction in medication use, around a standardised 0.38, as an addition to normal care rather than a replacement for it.
What kind of pain does hypnosis help most?
Pain around medical procedures has the best evidence by a distance — four independent research teams, thousands of patients, consistent direction. Chronic pain is harder: the effects are real against no treatment but have not separated from relaxation or pain education. And across every review, the effect on distress about pain is larger than the effect on pain itself.
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Where these numbers come from
- Better Health Channel. Hypnosis [Internet]. Melbourne: Victorian Government, Department of Health; [cited 2026 Sep 24]. betterhealth.vic.gov.au
- Rosendahl J, Alldredge CT, Haddenhorst A. Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective. Front Psychol. 2024;14:1330238. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1330238
- Tefikow S, Barth J, Maichrowitz S, et al. Efficacy of hypnosis in adults undergoing surgery or medical procedures: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Clin Psychol Rev. 2013;33(5):623-36. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2013.03.005
- Holler M, Koranyi S, Strauss B, et al. Efficacy of hypnosis in adults undergoing surgical procedures: a meta-analytic update. Clin Psychol Rev. 2021;85:102001. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2021.102001
- Lahoud MJ, Gurary ST, Elia N. Hypnosis for anaesthetists: a systematic review and meta-analyses. Anaesthesia. 2026;81(1):103-15. doi:10.1111/anae.70013
- Walter N, Leyva MT, Hinterberger T, et al. Hypnosis as a non-pharmacological intervention for invasive medical procedures – a systematic review and meta-analytic update. J Psychosom Res. 2025;192:112117. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2025.112117
- Yim TH, Derbyshire SWG. A systematic review of hypnosis for clinical pain relief. Eur J Pain. 2026;30(8):e70369. doi:10.1002/ejp.70369
- Scheffler M, Koranyi S, Meissner W, et al. Efficacy of non-pharmacological interventions for procedural pain relief in adults undergoing burn wound care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Burns. 2018;44(7):1709-20. doi:10.1016/j.burns.2017.11.019
- Montgomery GH, David D, Winkel G, et al. The effectiveness of adjunctive hypnosis with surgical patients: a meta-analysis. Anesth Analg. 2002;94(6):1639-45. doi:10.1097/00000539-200206000-00052
- Bollinger JW. The rate of adverse events related to hypnosis during clinical trials. Am J Clin Hypn. 2018;60(4):357-66. doi:10.1080/00029157.2017.1315927
- Landry M, Lifshitz M, Raz A. Brain correlates of hypnosis: a systematic review and meta-analytic exploration. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2017;81(Pt A):75-98. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.02.020
Every figure on this page carries the comparator it was measured against. If a page does not tell you what a number was compared with, the number is not telling you anything.
Related
- Does hypnosis work?The whole evidence base, read in public, including where it fails.
- Hypnotherapy for IBSThe only use of hypnosis named in national clinical guidelines.
- All sessionsThe whole catalogue, with prices and running times.
Pain is the best case hypnosis has, and it is still a modest one. If that costs me a sale, it has cost me the right sale.
The three sessions on this page
Every one is an instant MP3 from the publisher at US$18.95, about A$27, with ninety days to change your mind. I earn a commission; it changes neither what you pay nor what I list.
Pain Relief
The broadest of the seventeen. Start here if you are only trying one.
Chronic Pain Management
For long-standing pain that has already been investigated.
Lower Back Pain Relief
The commonest specific version.
These are self-help audio sessions, not medical treatment, a diagnosis, or a substitute for professional care. No therapeutic outcome is claimed for any session sold on this site. Hypnosis is not a treatment for any condition described here. Pain should be investigated by a doctor before it is managed with anything. Better Health Channel advises avoiding hypnosis with severe depression, psychosis, or a drug or alcohol problem. Never listen while driving or operating machinery, and do not stop prescribed medication without your doctor’s approval.