Clinical Hypnosis for Hot Flashes (2026)
Vanessa Muñiz & Gary Elkins
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Baylor University, Waco, TX USA
Correspondence: vanessa_muniz1@outlook.com or gary_elkins@baylor.edu
Key words: clinical hypnosis; hypnotherapy; hot flashes; women’s health; menopause
Hot flashes are menopausal symptoms characterized by intense, sudden-onset sensations of heat often experienced in the face and chest area (Bansal & Aggarwal, 2019). They are often accompanied by heart palpitations, anxiety, headaches, fatigue, and are highly disruptive to daily life activities (Reed et al., 2009). More than 80% of post-menopausal women and breast cancer survivors experience hot flashes, which can last from five to seven years on average (Freedman, 2014; Nappi et al., 2021). Among these women, many report feeling like they do not have much control over their symptoms, and approximately 42% of women experiencing hot flashes report their symptoms to be “very severe” and significantly impact their quality of life (Blümel et al., 2018; Cole et al., 2022; Savolainen-Peltonen et al., 2014).
As defined by the American Psychological Association, hypnosis is “a state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness characterized by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion,” and clinical hypnosis, also referred to as hypnotherapy, is “the use of hypnosis for the treatment of a medical or psychological disorder or concern” (Elkins et al., 2015, pp. 6-7). Clinical hypnosis for hot flashes is an intervention that has been well-established and is manualized for clinical care (Elkins, 2014). It is a six-week long intervention with daily hypnotic inductions, ranging between 15 to 20 minutes, that include suggestions for relaxation, mental imagery of coolness, and empowerment of the individual to regain control over their symptoms and regulate body temperature. As part of the treatment course, clinical hypnosis is coupled with self-hypnosis and psychoeducation. The goal of self-hypnosis is to provide further reinforcement of the skills learned through hypnotic inductions between session and after the six-week intervention period. Finally, through psychoeducation, patients are informed about: what hot flashes are, how to identify and avoid potential triggers, what hypnosis is, and how hypnosis might help in their treatment for hot flashes.
Currently, clinical hypnosis for hot flashes is a behavioral intervention recommended by the Menopause Society and has been effective in reducing hot flash symptoms by over 50% across numerous clinical trials (Elkins et al., 2008, 2013, 2025; Shufelt et al., 2023). When compared to pharmacological interventions, clinical hypnosis produced significant and comparable reductions in menopausal symptoms of hot flashes without the negative adverse effects (Barton et al., 2017; MacLaughlan David et al., 2013). Finally, unlike behavioral interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy or mindfulness that only assist in coping with existing symptoms, clinical hypnosis is the only behavioral intervention effective in significantly reducing the frequency and severity of hot flashes (Muñiz et al., 2025). Clinical hypnosis for hot flashes can be accessed through in-person sessions, remotely with the use of video conferencing or audio recordings, and through app-delivery. The Evia app, developed by Mindset Health, is the first evidence-based mobile app offering clinical hypnosis for hot flashes to have been tested in retrospective and randomized clinical trials (Muñiz, 2025; Scheffrahn et al., 2025).
References
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