1,2,3 and you’re back in the room – hypnotherapy and dentistry
Featured Products Promotional FeaturesPosted by: Dental Design 8th December 2022
Hypnosis is a topic shrouded in misinformation and misunderstanding. After all, if you ask the average person about hypnosis, their mind is likely to conjure images of someone dangling a pocket watch in front of person’s eyes and tricking them into performing, saying or doing things they’d never normally do.
In a way, the media is to blame for this – for years we’ve been subjected to this “show business” take on hypnosis that has skyrocketed performers such as Derren Brown into the public eye. As such, most people conflate the idea of hypnosis with other gimmicky tricks hawked by magicians, like pulling a rabbit from a hat – but is this unfair?
Hypnosis, and more specifically hypnotherapy, has been proven to be hugely beneficial in helping people to overcome fear and past trauma. But how does hypnotherapy work and why is this not more widely utilised in UK dentistry?
How does hypnotherapy work?
Hypnotherapy is, in basic terms, a complementary form of medicine that utilises guided relaxation, intense concentration and focused attention. Because of this combination, hypnotherapy has a wide and often overlooked number of applications.
For example, once a person has entered the hypnotic state, they are often able to access memories that they have otherwise closed off from their conscious minds. Because this state of mind helps with mental suggestibility, hypnotherapy can also be used to change perceptions and behaviours, even going as far as helping to treat pain.[i]
When hypnotherapy is used to help influence behaviours it is usually referred to as suggestion therapy. This process involves a practitioner putting an individual into a hypnotised state and then using carefully selected suggestion techniques to help resolve issues. For instance, if someone has a bad habit such as smoking, hypnotherapy can be used to help overcome this by making a person believe they hate the taste of cigarettes.[ii]
Hypnotherapy has been found especially effective at combatting fears and helping people to deal with their anxiety.[iii] It can also be used to aid weight loss and help people overcome addiction – key behaviour changes that could have life-changing results.
A potential key to a wider problem
It’s no overstatement to say that the UK suffers from a widespread issue of dental phobia. It’s believed that more than 10 million people suffer from some level of dental anxiety, with 6 million of these having full-blown dental phobia.[iv] Bruxism, too, is a common issue among the UK population, with estimates suggesting that 8-10% of the UK population suffer from it.[v]
These are issues that we see the impact of every day. Dental anxiety and phobia have an untold effect on the nation’s oral health, and because we only tend to see these patients when they require urgent care, it’s difficult to provide a solution to their fears. In fact, any fear they feel about dentistry is likely exacerbated by when they do finally make an appointment, as by this time they will usually require extensive, and often expensive, dental treatment. Bruxist individuals are also difficult to help in the long-term. As this is uncontrolled behaviour, all we can do is provide temporary measures to help limit any damage to the dentition – without identifying the root cause, bruxism can’t be resolved.
With hypnotherapy being a potential cure for these issues, it’s interesting that it hasn’t become adopted on a wider level. Indeed, a study I found from 2012 that explores the relationship between hypnosis and dentistry seems to lay the blame on the exact reasoning that I have opened this article with – too many people believe that hypnosis is either a trick, or not viable as an actual solution to dental-based problems.[vi] However, another, more recent study from 2021 is more hopeful and outlines that hypnotherapy could have further applications in modern dentistry than previously thought, including improving compliance among patients who wear orthodontic appliances.[vii]
Hypnotherapy as part of the future?
So, where does this leave us? I think that hypnotherapy could very well have its place in the future of dentistry, especially if it can reliably solve significant issues such as dental anxiety. However, before this sort of practice becomes commonplace, there will be big barriers to overcome. Hypnosis is surrounded by stigma, and more research needs to be properly performed in order to understand the wider benefits and the long-term results.
There’s also the fact that the current infrastructure surrounding dentistry would have to be adapted to help include hypnotherapy into the way we treat patients. Would patients have to be referred to a hypnotherapist before treatment? What would the cost be for them? Though it could be a tangible solution to the dental anxiety problem, it may also be inaccessible to those without the means, especially in an unpredictable economic climate.
As ever, we’ll have to see what the future holds, but wider adoption of hypnotherapy is definitely an interesting prospect and one that we as professionals should be keeping in mind.
For further information please call EndoCare on 020 7224 0999
Or visit www.endocare.co.uk
EndoCare, led by Dr Michael Sultan, is one of the UK’s most trusted Specialist Endodontist practices. Through the use of the latest technologies and techniques, the highly-trained team can offer exceptional standards of care – always putting the patient first. What’s more, EndoCare is a dependable referral centre, to which dentists from across the country send their patients for the best in specialist endodontic treatment.
[i] WebMD. Mental Health and Hypnosis. Link: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/mental-health-hypnotherapy#:~:text=Hypnotherapy%20%2D%2D%20or%20hypnosis%20%2D%2D,is%20sometimes%20called%20a%20trance. [Last accessed September 22].
[ii] Hypnotherapy Directory. Suggestion Hypnotherapy. Link: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/mental-health-hypnotherapy#:~:text=Hypnotherapy%20%2D%2D%20or%20hypnosis%20%2D%2D,is%20sometimes%20called%20a%20trance. [Last accessed September 22].
[iii] Positive Psychology. Does Hypnotherapy Really Work? 10+ Scientific Findings. Link: https://positivepsychology.com/hypnotherapy/#:~:text=In%20their%202019%20review%20including,more%20beneficial%20than%20other%20approaches. [Last accessed September 22].
[iv] Oral Health Foundation. Income, education and social isolation linked to dental anxiety in new report. Link: https://www.dentalhealth.org/news/income-education-and-social-isolation-linked-to-dental-anxiety-in-new-report#:~:text=More%20than%2010%20million%20adults,million%20suffering%20from%20dental%20phobia. [Last accessed September 22].
[v] The Bruxism Association. What Is Bruxism? Link: https://www.bruxism.org.uk/what-is-bruxism.php [Last accessed September 22].
[vi] Holden, A. The art of suggestion: the use of hypnosis in dentistry. British Dental Journal volume 212, pages549–551 (2012)
[vii] Venkiteswaren, A. et al. Role of Hypnosis in Dental Treatment: A Narrative Review. J Int Soc Prev Community Dent. 2021 Mar-Apr; 11(2): 115–124.
