• Investigation the effect of hypnosis on reducing major depression symptoms
  • Fateme Assar,1 Elham Safari,2,* Reza Mostafazade,3
    1. Sudent Recearch Committee,School of Basic Science , Mashhad Islamic Azad University,Mashhad,Iran
    2. Sudent Recearch Committee,School of Nurcing and Midwifery, Mashhad Islamic Azad University,Mashhad,Iran
    3. Sudent Recearch Committee,Pharmacy student,School of Pharmacy,Mashhad University of Medical Sciences,,Mashhad,Iran


  • Introduction: Depression is a disorder characterized by a state of distress in various situations and inactivity and a lack of interest in doing things that were previously enjoyable for at least two weeks. According to studies, cognitive hypnotherapy can be effective in dramatically reducing these symptoms in acute depression. Hypnotherapy is a powerful technique performed by self-indulgence in a particular state of consciousness and with the ability to control the mind and body, so the purpose of this study is to checking the effect of hypnosis on reducing major depression symptoms.
  • Methods: This review was performed within articles published at PubMed, Google scholar, Cochrane and SID from 2000 to 2019. The keyword were major depression, hypnosis, treatment. By searching this database, 53 articles were found, 24 of them were not related with investigating and 19 of them by reading abstract were removed. All articles chosen from English and Persian articles.
  • Results: Finally 10 article were included in the study. In one study that performed on pregnant women, the experimental group received hypnosis intervention at week 16, 20, 28, 36 of pregnancy and the control group received routine prenatal care, the results showed that depression was significantly lower in the experimental group than the control group, while the level of anxiety don’t have significant different. In other studies that measured patient’s quality of life and sleep before and after receiving hypnosis intervention and psychotherapy showed that hypnosis improves quality of life and relaxation in persons.
  • Conclusion: It seems that hypnosis can be successful treatment for a wide range of patients with depressive disorder, also can improve the quality of life, but need to be more research done at this topic.
  • Keywords: Major depression, Hypnosis, Treatment