HYPNOSAFE: Reducing stress and anxiety via hypnotic suggestions of safety in experimental and clinical settings

• Applicant: Dr. Barbara Schmidt
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 496353429

We are confronted with stressors every day challenging our physical and mental health. Therefore, there is a high need for effective interventions to reduce the negative consequences of short- and long-term stress. Generally, the biological processes elicited by a stressful experience are adaptive, leading to changes in the autonomous nervous system (ANS), the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the innate immune system. But when these stress responses are too strong, are elicited too often or even chronically, we face an allostatic overload which negatively affects both physical and mental health. To develop effective interventions, we must understand the mechanisms of stress. Stress is a very subjective experience and depends on evaluative processes of the individual. The mere presence of a potentially stressful situation is not sufficient to predict the subjective experience of stress. Instead, the stress experience depends on the appraisal of the potential stressor.There are already interventions to reduce stress like listening to mus, physical activity, mindfulness meditation, or biofeedback. These interventions have to be applied for a longer period of time, should be supervised by a trainer, and require a relatively high amount of commitment. In this proposal, I suggest hypnosis interventions as an alternative way to reduce stress and anxiety. Advantages of the presented hypnosis interventions in this proposal are high effectiveness, long-term effects, and easy accessibility.The aim of this research proposal is to validate hypnosis as effective means to reduce the negative consequences of acute and chronic stress. The proposal consists of three parts, with increasing translation from controlled laboratory to clinical environments. In the first part, the aim is to test a hypnosis intervention in a standardized laboratory social stress situation with healthy participants. Then, we test a hypnosis intervention in a clinical context with children undergoing an elective surgery. Finally, we test a hypnosis intervention with patients in the intensive care unit, an extreme situation associated with high levels of stress and anxiety.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants