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Hypnosis Can Help Patients Through Cancer Treatment, Not Instead of It
During Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a retired emergency physician explains where hypnosis fits in cancer care, and where it does not.
Greater Philadelphia October 2nd — As October brings Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Denise Billen-Mejia, MD CH, a retired emergency medicine physician and Consulting Hypnotist, is drawing attention to a part of cancer care that rarely makes the headlines: helping patients get through treatment itself.
Major cancer organisations now include hypnosis in their guidance on supportive care. Joint guidelines from the Society for Integrative Oncology and the American Society of Clinical Oncology recommend hypnosis for pain and for anxiety during cancer-related procedures such as biopsies and port placements. Separately, the Menopause Society’s 2023 review of non-hormonal treatments gave clinical hypnosis its highest evidence rating for hot flashes, a common and often severe problem for women after breast cancer, many of whom cannot take hormone therapy.
“Hypnosis does not treat cancer, and nobody should ever choose it instead of treatment,” said Billen-Mejia. “What it can do is help people with the parts of treatment that are hardest to bear: the procedures, the nausea, the hot flashes, the long nights. The cancer specialists’ own guidelines now recognise that.”
Billen-Mejia points to three areas where patients and families may not realise help is available.
The first is procedures. Scans, biopsies and port placements are a constant feature of cancer care, and for many patients the anticipation is as hard as the procedure itself.
The second is anticipatory nausea. After a few rounds of chemotherapy, some patients begin to feel sick before that day’s treatment has even begun, triggered by the drive to the clinic or the waiting room. “That is the body learning what usually comes next,” said Billen-Mejia. “It is not imagination, and learned responses are exactly what hypnosis is best placed to work with.”
The third is hot flashes, for women after breast cancer and also for men having hormone treatment for prostate cancer, a group who are often overlooked. Most of the research so far has been in women.
Clinical hypnosis is a focused, absorbed state in which the person remains aware and in control throughout. Sessions typically teach patients to reach that state on their own, with recordings to use at home or during treatment. Because it involves no medication, it does not interact with other treatments.
Timing matters too. Billen-Mejia notes that starting early is usually easier: before a first procedure rather than after a difficult one, or at the first sign of nausea arriving ahead of treatment. “But it is never too late,” she said. “Some of the most worthwhile work happens after treatment has ended, when the fatigue lingers and every twinge sets off a question, and everyone else expects you to feel better."
Billen-Mejia stresses two points for anyone considering it. “Always tell your oncology team what you are doing, so everyone looking after you has the whole picture,” she said. “And remember the carers. The people who drive, wait and remember the appointments carry their own version of all of this.”
Throughout October, Billen-Mejia’s free weekly newsletter is exploring hypnosis in cancer care, from nausea and hot flashes to life after treatment ends. Readers can subscribe at [newsletter sign-up link].
About Denise Billen-Mejia
Denise Billen-Mejia, MD CH, is a retired emergency medicine physician and a Consulting Hypnotist at her practice, Akeso & Aglaia Hypnosis. She sees clients worldwide by Zoom. She hosts the radio show H2 — Health and Hypnosis, co-hosts the podcast Two Hypnotherapists Talking, and co-authored Self-Care is Not a Mani-Pedi. healandberadiant.com
Denise is also a contributor on the nationally syndicated Price of Business Digital Network. Learn more at PriceofBusiness.com.
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