By Christine Phelan, The Sun, Lowell, Mass.
Jun. 30–CONCORD — Just a day after Virginia Lieblein’s open-heart surgery, recovery ward nurses were aghast to find her leaned over the bathroom sink, hair frothy with shampoo. Feeling fine despite the ordeal, she was determined “not to have bed head.”
Weeks prior, however, Lieblein had been a nervous wreck. She was only 49. Felt out of control. And experienced the kind of pre-op terror that sent her heart racing.
What made the difference, explained Lieblein, now 53, was a kind of self-hypnosis — based on the work of Peggy Huddleston’s Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster — and the realization that harnessing the power of her mind had everything to do with her health — and recovery.
“Doctors used to be the ones that fixed you, healed you,” said Lieblein, director of Emerson Hospital’s Community Education programs. “Nowadays, though, you see more people who believe in the mind-body connection. They’re responsible for their own healing. I think the time has come that this isn’t strange anymore.”
Later this fall, Emerson will offer a three-part hypnotherapy-based smoking cessation class, the first area hospital to do so. And if hypnosis isn’t a mainstream solution to what ails us yet, said Lieblein, it’s gained considerable acceptance as public interest in alternative therapies — from acupuncture to Reiki to hypno-birthing — grows increasingly common at major hospitals.
A lot of the interest, experts say, has to do with consumer-driven health care and
a culture that’s fast embracing alternatives to traditional medical care. Those changes, in turn, have compelled physicians to work closely with those trained in everything from pain management to yoga, something that a generation ago was unheard of.
At Emerson, visualization and hypnosis courses based on Huddleston’s work are offered routinely to all patients scheduled for surgery. Elsewhere, alternative therapies are even used to stave off disease. At Lowell General Hospital, those with risk factors for heart disease are referred to the hospital’s Yoga for Heart class. LGH now requires Huddleston’s course for all its gastric bypass patients.
“They found that they were calmer before and after the surgery,” said Huddleston, a Lexington-based psychotherapist, “and they recovered so much faster that they’re convinced it just makes for a happier and easier patient to take care of.”
Patients who use Huddleston’s visualization require less pain medication, have less anxiety, spend less time in the hospital and ultimately, she said, cost less.
While research on hypnosis has been mixed, some say it may soon become just as routine. Until then, however, hypnotist Joe Packard — who will teach Emerson’s smoking cessation class this fall — is used to being a “last resort.”
“These are people who’ve tried everything else — the gum, the patch, the drugs — the things that mask the issue,” explained Packard. “But what they have is a feeling. And when you change the feeling that’s causing the behavior, then you don’t do it. You’ll be successful for the long-term.”
Packard said he directly addresses clients’ subconscious so that the feeling that elicits the bad habit — reaching for a cigarette, cookie or drink — changes. He likens a trance to daydreaming but said hypnosis is never something that’s done to a client but with them.
“It’s exciting,” said Lieblein. “It’s a big change from the normal offerings, but for those who’ve tried other methods and want it badly enough, it can really work.
“Hypnosis isn’t just the thing they do out in Las Vegas anymore,” she added. “Why not offer a variety of ways? Then smokers can see what works for them.”
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