From stage-show stereotypes to life-changing treatment, this episode explores the science - and the myths - behind hypnosis and hypnotherapy. We uncover extraordinary stories of addiction recovery, pain relief, and everyday healing from a form of talking therapy that remains widely misunderstood.

Asking whether we should take hypnotherapy more seriously, Joanna Bale talks to LSE anthropologist Dr Nick Long, who spent 18 months researching hypnosis and hypnotherapy in Indonesia. There, hypnotic practices are woven into everyday life - used in classrooms, homes and communities to calm, encourage and connect. In the UK, by contrast, hypnotherapy remains marginalised and constrained by cultural suspicion, despite recognition from the NHS.

Joanna also speaks to Amanda Joy, who left the NHS to retrain as a hypnotherapist after witnessing hypnosis succeed in relieving pain where conventional medicine had failed. And Sarah Ibrahim shares a moving personal account of how hypnotherapy helped her break free from a cocaine addiction that had gripped her for two decades.

These powerful first-hand testimonies help to illuminate what hypnosis really is, what it might be capable of, and why we may be too quick to dismiss it.

Contributors

Nick Long

Amanda Joy

Sarah Ibrahim

Research

Suggestions of power: searching for efficacy in Indonesia’s hypnosis boom by Nick Long

Therapeutic aQompaniments: Walking together in hypnotherapy—and ethnography by Nick Long

🗓️ This year’s #LSEFestival, taking place from Monday 15 to Saturday 20 June 2026, will explore the impact of these global challenges, and how individuals, communities, organisations, corporations, and those with political power should be tackling them to save the planet!

Find out more info and browse the programme here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/LSE-Festival/2026