Legal News

Researchers at King’s College London have collaborated with leading hypnotist Paul McKenna to devise a new technique to ease anxiety and depression.

The study involved 27 volunteers who imagined either walking up stairs or walking on a beach as they rubbed their own arms or had them rubbed by a therapist. The participants also carried out distraction tasks.

The researchers found that just one session involving the technique could help ease anxiety and clear the mind of traumatic memories.

Mr McKenna said that he had already used the therapy on around 1,000 patients he had treated for depression and anxiety.

Among those treated were rape victims and those who had suffered bereavement.

Mr McKenna said the study findings might be “the most significant breakthrough in psychology in the last 200 years”.

“What we are able to do in minutes used to take months,” he added.

The researchers found that, when during a session a patient recalled negative events in their lives and associated emotions, using distraction tasks and touching the forearms could increase levels of serotonin in the brain – one of the so-called “happiness” chemicals.

This can disrupt the link between unhappy memories and the emotional trauma they cause, said the researchers.

The study is published in Health Science Journal.
Duncan Lewis Mental Health Solicitors
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