Hi Sue

You need to look at the selection criteria for the evidence base for
NICE guidance statements. They are very rigorous.
The documents are all available online. (I will list them all in an
upcoming post.)

You will see that professional bodies can register as Stakeholders
and comment on the Scope of the review and the draft.

Interestingly the only professional hypnotherapy organisation
registering as a Stakeholder was the GHR. Not the NCH nor anyone else.
In addition only 2 comments out of about 400 related to hypnotherapy -
one was from ASH who were concerned that money might be directed to
research into hypnotherapy for smoking cessation when the evidence
base was already conclusive that it didn't work! (I kid you not!!)

The new guidance will be published in February 2008 and will give a
clear recommendation not to use NHS resources for acupuncture,
hypnotherapy, Allen Carr etc as a smoking cessation treatments.

That guidance has been in public development for nearly 3 years - and
no-one from the hypnotherapy community tried to get involved with it.

On the one hand many of us want to use an evidence-based approach -
and stand strongly on the side of scientific research with randomised
control groups. On the other hand no-one in the hypnotherapy
community seems want to really deal with the evidence accumulating
against hypnotherapy as a smoking cessation treatment.

When hypnotherapists talk about 95% success rates the scientific
community thinks we are in la-la land at best or with the snake-oil
merchants at worst. Right now we'd be very lucky if we can get a
rigorous evidence base together for 30% effectivness.

Mark
www.inspiredhypnosis.co.uk



--- In SmokeCircle@yahoogroups.com, Sue Northeast <suenortheast@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi yes helpful. There have been some well conducted studies with
Hypnotherapy and CBT combined; and measuring smoking cessation using
gold standard methods as follow up for smoking cessation. When
these studies are extracted from the meta-analysis we see an even
better result. What I wanted to know is how large/sufficient are
these studies for NICE, where common methods were actually monitored
etc, (and they did not include EFT, TFT, NLP, and Reiki etc in the
mix) and what was the p value on those well conducted studies,
surely there is at least sufficient evidence to form the basis for
larger studies where acceptable treatment models are used, as
standard for the purposes of measurement to move this forward?
>
> We know that there is little published evidence with TFT, and
counselling is barely above placebo. Extracting the elements of
Hypnotherapy that work, proven elements such as CBT, positive
suggestion, patented tried and tested scripts and methods taught by
advanced trainers in smoking cessation, surely we are at a stage
where many/most of the proven elements/technniques of Hypnotherapy
are visible now?
>
> Problems with the patch studies also, because the difference is so
small, that on further investigation the there may by flaws in the
selection process of the groups for example one group could all have
the same blood type, watch the same TV programmes, be of a different
and common culture to the placebo group, may consist of more
extroverts than the placebo group, may be more vegetarians in the
patch group to the placebo group, could be more susceptible to
marketing messages than the placebo group etc etc. etc.
Measurements which can go on forever and will affect differences
between the groups. Maybe even an eclectic approach is the right
method? It appears that meta-analysis shows hypnotherapy overall to
be better than placebo. So in light of this larger percentage how
many more thousands of people could be saved from lung cancer? as you
state that such a small percentage difference saves thousands of
lives. So as there is, apparently, a
> bigger percentage difference with hypnotherapy, why not recommend
it, and then do studies to extract the BEST OF THE BEST? Thus saving
not thousands, but millions of lives.
>
> So that when we know what the best elements are we might see 95%
success rates with hypnotherapy and CBT. Current evidence is NOT a
reason for NICE to NOT recommend hypnotherapy, it just means that
NICE should recommend Hypnotherapy, (with all of it's eclecticism
combined for now even if not perfect) and when the studies are
complete the news will only get better. NICE just has a problem
identifying the best elements of hypnotherapy, not a reason to say it
should not be used. I do not think that they do, but by not
recommending it, it is interpreted by many doctors as meaning that
they must not recommend it to Patients/Clients. Like I said, there
may not have been large clinical studies comparing walking, losing
weight, being happy, taking exercise compared to blood pressure
tablets or stress pills, but a common sense approach is needed too.
How do we as a group start to move this forward to ensure acceptance
by NICE?
>
> Does anybody have a full set of electronic studies on all the
smoking cessation published studies for the group to peruse or even
just all the references?
>
> Regards Sue
>