So that may have been the least-expected title for a blog entry in recent history, right? But I promise, it's relevant! Dr. Gary Elkins is the head of the Clinical Psychology program that I'm in. He taught my Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy class last year, and I'm actually working with him to TA the lab for that class this year.
He has been doing a lot of work with breast cancer and hypnosis for the past few years, and all my classmates who are in his lab have been as well. He recently got a $2.6 million grant from the National Institute of Health — the largest ever awarded by the NIH for this type of research! So far, he has found that hypnotic relaxation therapy can decrease both the frequency and severity of hot flashes in menopausal women. Basically, they take women going through menopause and induce relaxation through hypnosis. It sounds a little out there, but what do you know - it's working, and it's producing some pretty groundbreaking findings! The grant is to extend this research because it's pretty much sweet.
Here are some articles talking more in detail about his research and the grant:
U.S. News and World Report
Reuters
Yahoo News
So if you're planning on going through menopause anytime soon, book a flight down to Waco and get in on the trials!
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Thats really interesting Kristi! I had to look those articles up in PubMed and will read them (but not today since today is Saturday and that means college fb!). I spent some time with a plastic surgeon who spends a lot of time with breast cancer patients, and I bet he'd be interested to hear about this; I'm gonna pass it along to him.
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