[mindsetalex]

Hey HN, I'm Alex. I’m the co-founder of Mindset Health, a digital health startup that makes hypnosis-based management programs for chronic health conditions.

Hypnosis get’s a bad rap but it’s essentially just a state of focused attention and absorption where you become more suggestible. It’s an experiential learning state that amplifies therapeutic techniques, from CBT to visualization and direct suggestion.

If you’re interested in learning more, here’s a recent study from Stanford on the brain areas activated during hypnosis: (https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2016/07/study-identif...) and a meta-analysis on hypnosis as an adjunct to CBT vs CBT alone (http://coyoteinstitute.us/Hypnosis%20as%20an%20Adjunct%20to%...).

We work with expert doctors and psychologists to deliver audio hypnotherapy sessions (think goal-orientated guided meditation) through mobile apps for various health conditions, like anxiety and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

I work on Mindset Health with my brother, Chris, and small (but awesome) team based out of Melbourne, Australia. We raised our US$1.1m seed round coming out of Y Combinator and are passionate about empowering people to manage their conditions themselves, from home.

We have two programs at the moment, Mindset for Mental Health and Nerva for IBS.

Mindset is based on the work by Dr Michael Yapko, a world-leading expert in the clinical uses of hypnosis and involves teaching coping skills while in a hypnotic state.

Nerva is based on the work by Dr Simone Peters, who ran a randomized clinical study with Monash University that found her 6-week gut-directed hypnotherapy approach helped 71% of participants improve their symptoms by an average of 62%.

We want your feedback, questions, and ideas. We know the topics of ‘hypnosis’ and ‘hypnotherapy’ bring up questions and skepticism and we’d love to dive deeper into those questions.

[keville]

I'm pretty sure I have a (very) mild form of trichotillomania, where I pick at my beard absentmindedly and pull out "odd" hairs more often than I'd like. Trying to be conscious about it has already improved the issue as I've aged, but I have always harbored a desire to find out if hypnotism would help. Any idea if this kind of behavior has been eased by your styles of therapies?

[pottertheotter]

I do this same thing. I have a couple hairs that are thicker than others and I'll end up finding them (or I think I find them) while watching TV, reading at the computer, etc. But I end up accidentally pull out a lot of other hairs around the ones I'm trying to get. I have a thick and long enough beard that I can cover it up, but there's a bit of a bald spot in there.

Really interesting (and comforting) to hear someone else doing the same thing.

[mindsetalex]

Good question! There have been some studies looking into hypnosis for trichotillomania (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11417149/) which found it was helpful but there needs to be more studies into the area. On a cognitive level, I could imagine why it would be an effective treatment tho.

[alexhaar]

Have you checked out www.habitaware.com? It's a wearable you can train to help you stop behaviors like that.

[hashberry]

I will gladly hand over my money for an app that will hypnotize me to stop procrastinating and make me like my job.

[ErikAugust]

Isn’t this the plot of Office Space?

[OneGuy123]

I'd dare say you see the problem up-side down: the problem isn't to "make you like your job".

You have to instead see how much you hate your job. And that you will either spend your entire life hating it, or you will change it.

[mindsetalex]

We actually have a course on procrastination (by a different practitioner, not Dr Yapko) but you'll have to learn to like your job yourself haha.

[TrinaryWorksToo]

I thought the state theory of hypnosis was disproven. How does the brain state you describe differ from the beginning stages of sleep?

[mindsetalex]

The state vs non-state discussion is still ongoing. The Stanford study linked above highlighted that there is a change in brain activity during hypnosis but there is also evidence for the non-state theories around expectancy, perception etc.

When I say 'state', I don't necessarily mean a distinct cognitive state, instead, I'm describing the characteristics: heightened suggestibility induced by expectation and focused attention.

[TrinaryWorksToo]

https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1...

This has interesting information on how little of a state there really is. > If trance simply refers to whatever happens after hypnosis, then it could signify most anything, as each individual’s personal experience is unique, and responses to hypnosis are cued mostly by suggestions and very little, if at all, as we have noted, by the presence of the hypnotic induction (Lynn, Laurence, & Kirsch, 2015). If the term trance implies that the purported state somehow increases suggestibility, then this definition is circular, as hypnotic responsiveness can at once indicate the presence of a hypnotic trance and be explained by it (see Braffman & Kirsch, 1999; Lynn & Green, 2011; Sarbin & Coe, 1972).

One of the more interesting developments I've seen, such as in this systematic review of hypnosis literature, is that different phenomena have different suggestibility, and that hypnotic scales are really unreliable, as people do not fit on a straight line from non-suggestible to suggestible.

I'm also fascinated that the Carleton Skills Training Program (CSTP) can improve suggestibility, so testing for it may not be the right approach, but you might rather find people who are self-taught.

One thing that I found really interesting is that there's some evidence for a region in our brain responsible as to whether we percieve a thought as automatic (e.g. not starting in our consiousness), called the parietal operculum. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207144.2019.16...

This essentially leads to one possibility that hypnosis is little more than a kind of imagination that engages this region versus any other.

[mindsetalex]

Interesting review! I agree that the use of the word 'trance' isn't accurate nor beneficial for describing hypnosis.

I found their conclusion interesting: "We have argued that hypnosis does not produce a trance or ASC clearly distinguishable from nonhypnotic experiential states, but that hypnotic interventions, nevertheless, can initiate a broad array of alterations in consciousness". So essentially they're arguing that although it's not a distinct altered state of consciousness, it can trigger changes to consciousness?

I haven't heard of the CSTP - will definitely check it out, thanks! Could imagine a world where you use techniques such as these at the beginning of a program to enhance the effectiveness of the program.

I wouldn't necessarily take that away from the study - acting on the same brain area doesn't necessarily mean it's 'kind of imagination', instead that it could just work on similar brain areas as automaticity (or perceived automaticity).