Hypnosis and GI Disorders
Gastrointestinal (GI) disorders, particularly functional disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, are prevalent and associated with high morbidity, associated high rates of anxiety and depression, and impaired societal productivity. Hypnosis has been shown to have positive effects on various aspects of gastrointestinal functioning in both functional and organic GI disorders including changing intestinal motility, decreasing pain sensitivity and improving immune functioning. This workshop will review the empirical evidece to support use of hypnosis in GI disorders and demonstrate specific hypnotic tools to achieve this impact.
Objectives
There is growing evidence for the positive impact of hypnosis in gastrointestinal disorders yet many behavioral practitioners are not trained in the specific techniques that can be useful in this clinical cohort.
Non members are invited to attend as guests. Please contact Nancy Riemer, President.
About Dr. Szigethy:
Eva M. Szigethy, M.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Szigethy serves as director of the Visceral Inflammation & Pain (VIP) Center in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at UPMC Presbyterian. In addition, she is the clinical director of the Medical Coping Clinic, an integrated clinical behavioral health program nested in the Division of Gastroenterology at Children’s Hospital of UPMC. Dr. Szigethy’s major research interest is examining the detrimental effect of depression on disease course in physically ill youth and young adults. She is conducting a NIMH funded R01 study to investigate the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on the emotional state of youths, 9-17 years with IBD and clinically significant depression. She also studies the effects of hypnosis on IBD-related pain and immune functioning. In 2007, Dr. Szigethy was chosen by the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to receive the prestigious New Innovator Award. The DP2 award takes a novel, multi-dimensional approach assessing the neurobiological basis of depression in chronic pediatric illness using inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as a model. It also evaluates the efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy on emotional well-being, physical health, economic costs, and neurobiological outcomes. These results will provide key building blocks for a paradigm shift within medicine by integrating behavioral health into comprehensive medical care of physical illnesses. Using translational neuroscience approaches, Dr. Szigethy also examines brain regions that underlie emotional and cognitive processing in youth with active IBD and depression using brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) compared to youth with IBD and no depression, and healthy controls. She will correlate neurobiological findings with direct measurements of circulating cytokines along with evaluating endotoxin-stimulated cytokines as well as targeted neurophysiological and genetic probes in these three groups. Another important research interest of Dr. Szigethy’s is sleep disruption and its impact on the immune system. The psychological aspects of having a chronic disease, including depression and increased stress, often result in sleep disturbances. Sleep disruption is particularly detrimental to patients with IBD both in terms of negative impact on immune system functioning as well as negatively modifying the patient’s coping responses. In her R01, she has been collecting pilot data on sleep using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and is developing a grant proposal to further characterize sleep patterns of adolescents and young adults with active IBD using behavioral as well as wrist actigraphy methods to correlate sleep disturbance with measures of IBD severity, quality of life, and depression. She currently serves as President of the Association of Women Psychiatrists, an American Psychiatric Association-affiliated group of 3,200 women psychiatrists worldwide devoted to fostering excellence in women’s health and professional development. More recently, Dr. Szigethy was awarded to receive Distinguished Fellow status by the American Psychiatric Association.
