Immunological Markers of Frequently Recurrent Genital Herpes Simplex Virus and Their Response to Hypnotherapy: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Patients were recruited for hypnotherapy from a clinic for patients with frequently recurrent genital herpes simplex virus (rgHSV). Psychological and immunological parameters were measured 6 weeks prior to hypnotherapy and 6 weeks afterwards, during which time each patient kept a diary of symptoms of rgHSV. Following hypnotherapy there was a significant overall reduction in the number of reported episodes of rgHSV, accompanied by an increase in the numbers of CD3 and CD8 lymphocytes, which may represent a non specific effect of hypnosis. The improvers showed significant rises in natural killer (NK) cell counts, HSV specific lymphokine activated killer (LAK) activity, and reduced levels of anxiety when compared to non-improvers. NK cell numbers and HSV specific LAK activity may therefore be important in the reduction in rgHSV following hypnotherapy.

Hypnotizability and immunological response to psychological intervention in HIV

“…Accordingly stress-control psychological interventions appear to have a place in the treatment of HIV. Indeed, self-hypnosis training was found to be highly effective in ameliorating a chronic viral infection, HSV-2, in patients in whom it was not only chronic, but highly virulent; recurrence rate was reduced by half with only six weeks of training (Fox, Henderson, Barton et al, 1999). However, psychological interventions are usually provided to treat psychological symptoms or pain (e.g.…”

“…In a series of studies on medical students in both the UK and the USA, students experiencing stress showed immunosuppression which was buffered by interventions including hypnosis (Kiecolt-Glaser, Glaser, Strain, Stout, Tarr, Holliday and Speicher, 1986;Glaser, Rice, Speicher, Stout and Kiecolt-Glaser, 1986;Gruzelier, Smith, Nagy and Henderson, 2001b;Naito, Laidlaw, Henderson, Farahani, Dwivedi and Gruzelier, 2003). An important component of treatment has been guided imagery, mostly in the context of hypnosis, which has been a technique used clinically with some research backing for its efficacy (Fox, Henderson, Barton, Champion, Rollin and Catalan, 1999;Gruzelier, Levy, Williams and Henderson, 2001a;Gruzelier, 2002a). In the Gruzelier et al (2001b) study, groups having immune imagery were directly compared to those having hypnosis without immune imagery and a control group (Gruzelier et al, 2001a).…”

“…Self-hypnosis, on the other hand, has a long history of documented beneficial effects on both non-ill and ill subject samples (Kiecolt-Glaser, Glaser, Shuttleworth et al, 1987;Fox, Henderson, Barton et al, 1999;Gruzelier et al, 2001b;Miller and Cohen, 2001). Self-hypnosis for the HIV participants in the present study included training in immediate and deeper stress relief techniques and they were given audio CDs that contained many different tracks all with immune-enhancing imagery.…”

“…Self-hypnosis for the HIV participants in the present study included training in immediate and deeper stress relief techniques and they were given audio CDs that contained many different tracks all with immune-enhancing imagery. Some clinical trials have indicated that hypnotizability has some predictive value clinically (Collison, 1975;Fox, Henderson, Barton et al, 1999) and others, little value (Shertzer and Lookingbill, 1987). This leads us to the question as to whether interpersonal differences, like hypnotizability, exert sufficient influence to be detectable in physiological measures in HIV infection.…”

Fifth Annual Brain Immune Network Group Meeting

“…The hypothesised health benefits were validated and were next explored in 20 patients with recurrent genital Herpes simplex virus (rgHSV) who were given six weeks of self-hypnosis training with directed imagery. Following hypnosis there was a 48% reduction in reported episodes accompanied by an increase in the numbers of CD3 and CD8 counts (Fox et al, 1999). 65% of patients improved in whom there was an increase in NKC counts, HSV specific LAK activity and reduced levels of anxiety.…”