[starkfist]

Has anyone here ever tried hypnosis? I got sick from food poisoning a few years ago, and ever since then have had an on again off again issue with hypochondria. I've heard that hypnosis can help with this, but as a natural skeptic I'm... skeptical.

[gruseom]

I studied hypnosis intermittently for a couple of years. It's a powerful tool that can help one make changes. But it's not a mechanical process that produces the same results every time; there's a lot of mutable state involved. It's better to treat it as an exploration and see what happens. Skepticism need not get in your way. Just let it take the form of curiosity for a while.

The most important variable is probably how good the practitioner is (and whether there's a good fit between that person and you).

[powrtoch]

I haven't tried it, but the first thing that comes to mind is that your skepticism is likely to have a causal influence on it's efficacy.