Hypnosis Therapy for Pulmonary Conditions (2026)
Ran D. Anbar and Mac E. Lancaster
Center Point Medicine, La Jolla, CA
Correspondence: ran.anbar@centerpointmedicine.com
Keywords: Pulmonology; respiratory disorders; pulmonary rehabilitation; adjunctive treatment; anxiety
Therapy with hypnosis has been successfully applied in both psychological and medical settings, including pulmonology (Ehrensperger et al., 2025). Many individuals with respiratory diseases are affected by psychological factors, including depression, anxiety, difficulty managing lifestyle, and emotional reactivity, without meeting the diagnostic criteria for mental illness (Volpato et al., 2023). Clinical hypnosis allows clinicians the opportunity to address comorbid psychological symptoms by promoting relaxation and self-regulation for their clients.
Clinical hypnosis has been used as an effective primary therapy for patients with functional pulmonary issues such as vocal cord dysfunction (Anbar & Fernandes, 2017) and habit cough (Weinberger et al., 2025). Despite successful outcomes of hypnosis in children with habit cough, pulmonologists treating possible habit cough in adults have resisted accepting hypnosis as a possible therapy because published reports about its efficacy in adults have not included randomized trials (Weinberger et al., 2025). In a randomized crossover study, medical hypnosis reduced both the sensory and affective dimensions of experimentally induced dyspnea in healthy subjects more effectively than visual distraction (Morélot-Panzini et al., 2024). There are multiple reports that hypnosis is helpful with smoking cessation; however, more studies are needed to better establish its efficacy (Ekanayake & Elkins, 2025). Hypnosis has also been reported in case series to be a helpful adjunctive therapy for patients with asthma (Anbar, 2003) and cystic fibrosis (Anbar, 2000). Further, hypnosis has been shown to be an alternate respiratory control technique that lowers respiratory amplitude and improves respiratory cycle stability, which may help enhance treatment precision during lung cancer radiotherapy (Li et al., 2013). Anlló et al. (2020) found that hypnosis reduced anxiety and breathing rate in patients with COPD, compared to a sham group, and this result correlated with reduced respiratory strain. A recent study indicated that patients who received hypnosis in addition to standard pulmonary rehabilitation demonstrated higher physical activity levels six months after completing rehabilitation than those receiving standard care alone (Fernandes et al., 2026). Finally, hypnosis can be used to help patients become more receptive to undergoing medical procedures such as bronchoscopy (Portel et al., 2022), laryngoscopy (Anbar & Hehir, 2000), or radiotherapy (Stalpers et al., 2005), as well as to devices for breathing augmentation such as use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy or mechanical ventilation (Khirani et al., 2013).
Across these applications, hypnosis may benefit patients by reducing autonomic arousal, decreasing symptom-related anxiety, and enhancing patients’ ability to regulate their breathing and induce relaxation. Additionally, hypnosis has been used with some of these patients to identify and address psychosocial stressors that may be contributing to their persistent respiratory symptoms (Anbar & Fernandes, 2017; Weinberger et al., 2025). Throughout much of the literature regarding use of hypnosis for pulmonary conditions, effective hypnotic interventions require approximately 1-5 visits with a clinician (Anlló et al., 2020; Fernandes et al., 2026). Although findings generally support hypnosis therapy as a supportive pulmonology treatment, much of the literature consists of older case reports, case series, and small clinical trials. Larger randomized controlled studies are needed to better establish the efficacy of hypnosis across various pulmonary conditions. As a growing body of evidence demonstrates the influence of mental factors on chronic respiratory diseases, innovative approaches such as clinical hypnosis are needed to address associated psychological symptoms alongside conventional pulmonary treatment (Volpato et al., 2023).
References
Anbar, R. D. (2000). Self-hypnosis for patients with cystic fibrosis. Pediatric Pulmonology, 30(6), 461–465. https://doi.org/10.1002/1099-0496(200012)30:6<461::aid-ppul4>3.0.co;2-4
Anbar, R. D. (2003). Self-hypnosis for anxiety associated with severe asthma: A case report. BMC Pediatrics, 3, Article 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-3-7
Anbar, R. D., & Fernandes, B. A. (2017). Vocal cord dysfunction. In G. R. Elkins (Ed.), Handbook of medical and psychological hypnosis: Foundations, applications, and professional issues (pp. 429–433). Springer Publishing Company.
Anbar, R. D., & Hehir, D. A. (2000). Hypnosis as a diagnostic modality for vocal cord dysfunction. Pediatrics, 106(6), Article E81. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.106.6.e81
Anlló, H., Herer, B., Delignières, A., Bocahu, Y., Segundo, I., Mach Alingrin, V., Gilbert, M., & Larue, F. (2020). Hypnosis for the management of anxiety and dyspnea in COPD: A randomized, sham-controlled crossover trial. International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, 15, 2609–2620. https://doi.org/10.2147/COPD.S267019
Ehrensperger, C., Falbriard, L., Coen, M., Kopp, G., Berner, A., Hentsch, L., Kharat, A., & Guerreiro, I. (2025). Hypnose et pneumologie: Une approche intégrative [Hypnosis and pulmonology: An integrative approach]. Revue Medicale Suisse, 21(939), 2037–2040. https://doi.org/10.53738/REVMED.2025.21.939.48014
Ekanayake, V., & Elkins, G. R. (2025). Systematic review on hypnotherapy and smoking cessation. The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 73(1), 4–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207144.2024.2434082
Fernandes, N., Alexandre, F., Molinier, V., Castanyer, A., Moine, E., & Héraud, N. (2026). Effect of dyspnoea-oriented hypnosis as an adjunct to pulmonary rehabilitation on the affective dimension of dyspnoea and physical activity level: A randomised controlled trial. ERJ Open Research, 12(1), 00621-2025. https://doi.org/10.1183/23120541.00621-2025
Khirani, S., Kadlub, N., Delord, V., Picard, A., & Fauroux, B. (2013). Nocturnal mouthpiece ventilation and medical hypnosis to treat severe obstructive sleep apnea in a child with cherubism. Pediatric Pulmonology, 48(9), 927–929. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppul.22686
Li, R., Deng, J., & Xie, Y. (2013). Control of respiratory motion by hypnosis intervention during radiotherapy of lung cancer I. BioMed Research International, 2013, Article 574934. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/574934
Morélot-Panzini, C., Arveiller-Carvallo, C., Rivals, I., Wattiez, N., Lavault, S., Brion, A., Serresse, L., Straus, C., Niérat, M. C., & Similowski, T. (2024). Medical hypnosis mitigates laboratory dyspnoea in healthy humans: A randomised, controlled experimental trial. The European Respiratory Journal, 64(3), Article 2400485. https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.00485-2024
Portel, L., Perel, A., Masson, L., Roy, C., & Mebs, S. (2022). Tolerance’s improvement of flexible bronchoscopy by Ericksonian hypnosis: The BREATH study. Respiratory Medicine and Research, 81, Article 100798. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resmer.2020.100798
Stalpers, L. J., da Costa, H. C., Merbis, M. A., Fortuin, A. A., Muller, M. J., & van Dam, F. S. (2005). Hypnotherapy in radiotherapy patients: A randomized trial. International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, 61(2), 499–506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2004.06.005
Volpato, E., Banfi, P., & Verkleij, M. (2023). Editorial: The psychological challenges of respiratory disease. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1213963. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1213963
Weinberger, M., Anbar, R. D., & Buettner, D. (2025). The past, present, and future care for refractory chronic cough in children and adults. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 14(18), Article 6594. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14186594
Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal [Memoir on the discovery of animal magnetism]. A Geneve.
Mesmer, F. A. (1781). Précis historique de faits relatifs au magnétism-animal jusques en avril 1781 [Historical account of facts relating to animal magnetism up to April 1781]. No publisher identified.
Mesmer, F. A. (1948). Mesmerism by Doctor Mesmer (1779). Being the first translation of Mesmer’s historic “Mémoire sur la découverte du Magnétisme Animal” (V. R. Myers, Trans.). Macdonald.
Pattie, F. A. (1994). Mesmer and animal magnetism: A chapter in the history of medicine. Edmonston.
Twain, M. [Clemens, S.] (2013). Autobiography of Mark Twain: The complete and authoritative edition, vol. 2. (B. Griffin & H. E. Smith, Eds.). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.16995/la.1905