Hypnosis for Burns

All the standard methods of treatment had failed. Like many severe-burn victims, a group of patients at Dallas' Parkland Hospital morosely refused to eat or to exercise, cried out for narcotics, and suffered from skin grafts that would not heal. For lack of nutrition, the men's wounds were getting worse instead of better. Then a five-man team * from the University of Texas' Southwestern Medical School decided to try age-old, much-debated therapeutic gimmick--hypnosis.

The treatment was repeated daily, directed at specific problems. Sample hyp. node formulas: "When you wake up, the area in which you have been burned will not be painful in any sense of the word. It is not going to hurt you, but you must be careful not to injure it," or "When you wake up, you are going to be hungry. You are going to want tuna fish and milk and meat and butter. The right food will help make you well again." So far, hypnosis has brought six difficult test cases around. Among them:

P:B.W., 24, with second-degree burns covering 45% of his body surface, had undergone several unsuccessful skin grafts in 18 months, went from 130 to 90 Ibs. because of refusal to eat properly. Skin infections and contractures (contracted-burn scar tissue) made it difficult for him to move his limbs and neck. Within a few days after hypnosis began, he was taking 4,200 calories per day, became cheerful and cooperative. Thanks to improved diet, skin grafts began to "take." Twelve weeks later, B. W., healed, walked out of the hospital.

P:J.C., 33, suffered 45% body-surface burns in a boiler explosion. His dressings could only be changed under anesthesia; he feared moving his painfully burned hands and fingers. The Southwestern team started daily hypnosis; shunning narcotics, the patient obediently began to exercise his hands as instructed every 30 minutes, even in his sleep, until the doctors stopped him with a posthypnotic order.

P:C.J., 32, suffered from 35% burns, started hypnotic treatment only four hours after the injury. As a result, no anesthesia was required to dull pain, even during skin grafts. With a good appetite and exercise, C. J. spent only 18 days in hospital.

Last week, coached by Psychologist Harold Crasilneck, the Southwestern team was using hypnosis on yet another patient: a 29-year-old victim of Buerger's disease, a circulatory ailment heavily aggravated by smoking. After hypnosis, the patient refused to touch cigarettes, retched when one was offered. Result: steady improvement. The team hopes to extend the technique to other chronic ailments, but, warns Crasilneck: "As we see it now, hypnosis has a very definite, specific role in medicine. We don't for a moment say it is a cure-all."

* Psychiatrist James McCranie, Psychologist Harold B. Crasilneck, Surgeons Morris J. Fogelman, Ben Wilson and Jerry Stirman.

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