Mind over Medicine

摘要

Shelley Thomas, 53, Was Wheeled into an anteroom at London's Middle-sex Hospital in preparation for pelvic surgery. A patient going into that operation is usually given a mix of painkilling narcotics and nerve-quelling tranquilizers. But not Thomas. Instead she rested on a gurney, alert and calm, taking deep breaths at her hypnotherapist's instruction. Thomas counted aloud, "One hundred, deep sleep; 99, deeper sleep; 98..." "By the time I got to 95, the words and numbers had all gone," says Thomas. "It's quite peculiar. They all go."