Patients are choosing hypnosis over anesthesia in Quebec hospitals

Montreal Gazette

30-04-2025

Health News
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In her mind, 14-year-old cancer patient Michelle Yaa Henewaa was flying first class on her way to go shopping in downtown Tokyo.
In reality, doctors were puncturing her back to collect spinal fluid at the Montreal Children's Hospital, where she lay on an X-ray table in a dimly lit radiology room.
Yaa Henewaa did not receive any anesthetic for the procedure. Instead, she opted to be hypnotized to manage the pain.
Hypnotist and medical imaging technologist Vicky Fortin snapped her fingers behind Yaa Henewaa's head as she counted down from 10 and described the dreamlike shopping trip in Tokyo, a technique used in hypnosis to help the patient dissociate.
'This trip is coming to an end,' Fortin whispered as doctors wiped blood from the patient's back.
Yaa Henewaa is one of more than 400 patients at the Children's Hospital who have chosen hypnosis over anesthetic, Fortin said. Increasingly in Quebec hospitals, health-care professionals have been offering hypnosis to patients who need alternative pain management.
When Yaa Henewaa's T-cell lymphoma was diagnosed in January 2024, she had a cancerous mass in her chest. The doctors told her anesthesia would be too risky because when her organs relaxed under anesthetic, the mass could press against the airways, making it hard to breathe.
She said she was 'freaked out' the first time she was hypnotized because she still had some awareness of her surroundings during the procedure, which she said wouldn't have been the case were she sedated. Despite the peculiarity of the experience, she was excited to try hypnosis because she 'never believed' it was possible to use it as pain relief in a medical setting 'until they did it.'
'When the needle was going in, I could feel something,' Yaa Henewaa said immediately after the procedure. 'But when (Fortin) continued to talk, I was lost again (in a trance).'
Hypnosis is an ancient technique dating back thousands of years and has been studied by European physicians since the 18th century, according to a 2024 medical journal article.
Hospitals across Quebec started researching hypnosis as a pain management alternative in the 1990s, according to David Ogez, a clinical psychologist who trains hypnotherapists through the Société Québécoise d'Hypnose (SQH). Its use as a substitute for anesthesia in Quebec hospitals has become increasingly common over the last 10 years, particularly after the Children's Hospital medical-imaging department participated in a hypnotherapy pilot project in 2019, Fortin said.
'We need to learn that pain is not zero or 100; it's somewhere in between sometimes, and we don't need to feel nothing to be able to go through a procedure and be comfortable,' Fortin said, adding that hypnosis can spare a patient the potential risk that comes with general anesthesia.
The idea for the pilot project came from a medical conference in France, Fortin explained, where a McGill University Health Centre staffer attended a panel on hypnosis in medical imaging.
Ogez said medical hypnotherapy is already common in Europe, particularly France and Belgium. Medical hypnosis research is vibrant in Quebec, too, he said, and the SQH has been researching the subject since the mid-20th century. Ogez has been training health-care practitioners across the province to become hypnotherapists, including in Gaspé, Sherbrooke and Quebec City.
Hypnosis is used for pain management for 'surface level' medical procedures, said Ogez, such as colonoscopies, biopsies, dental work, needlework and catheter insertions. It's not used for major operations like open heart surgery, but Ogez said hypnosis is a useful tool for pain management during small yet painful procedures.
Ahead of the procedure, the patient chooses somewhere they would like to 'travel' during their trance, Fortin explained. Yaa Henewaa chose shopping in Tokyo; another teenage cancer patient, Sofia Pezet, said she had chosen 'a day at school' or 'soccer practice' as her destinations, because she has been absent from both since her non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis two months ago.
The hypnotherapist then asks the patient to focus on something like their breathing, the sound of the hypnotist's voice or their fingers moving from side to side.
Then they count down from 10, at each step cueing the patient to deepen their relaxation before the hypnotist begins describing their trip.
Fortin said one trick is to engage all the patient's senses, which makes the story more lifelike.
'She can walk and she feels the floor, the movement and then the sounds of the car in the street and the smell of the food,' Fortin explained after the procedure.
She said it was helpful that Yaa Henewaa chose a story involving an airplane.
'The plane is a good tool to do a dissociation. You leave everything behind and you fly away,' Fortin said. 'The more you will dissociate the patient from their body in the story, the deeper they will go into trance, and the less they feel.'
In order for hypnosis to work, the patient also must be willing and open to getting hypnotized. Fortin said anyone can be hypnotized, but Ogez emphasized that kids are strong candidates.
'It's easy for children because they have a lot of creativity' and imagination, he said.
'We tell them a story, they get right into it. With adults, on the other hand, we need to distract their rationality a little more,' he said.
The patient also must be older than eight or the medical team might determine that the patient should not be put in an 'altered state' because of other confounding factors, said MUHC child life specialist Anna Paliotti, who also performs hypnosis at the Children's Hospital.
Anyone can be a hypnotist, Fortin said. Being a doctor isn't a prerequisite — all that's needed is to go through a 60-hour training course, learn the basic techniques of hypnosis, and practise.
Many patients are hypnotized because sedation is too dangerous. But for some it's a preference.
When Yaa Henewaa was hypnotized in March, the cancerous mass in her chest was much smaller than it was during her initial diagnosis. She has received anesthetic several times over the last year, having gone to the hospital at least twice a month since early 2024.
She chose to be hypnotized again in part because she wouldn't have to face the side-effects of anesthetic, including drowsiness and numbness. After waking up from the spinal tap, she said she felt 'pretty normal.'
'The aftermath is pretty cool because with the anesthesia sometimes I feel dizzy and stuff for almost my whole way home,' she said. 'This one is OK.'
Leora Schertzer
montrealgazette
Leora Schertzer is a reporter at the Montreal Gazette who thrives on the chase. Whether it's making a documentary about sewage or investigating a Nazi gold scandal, it's the novelty and adrenaline that keep her in this challenging industry. Send her tips at [e-mail].