Does hypnotherapy work for weight loss?

Countless clients report anecdotally that they wouldn't have achieved success without hypnotherapy (and hadn't previously and sustainably done so).

A study back in 1986 by Cochrane and others showed hypnotherapy was successful in a sample of 60 women aged 20-65 years, who were not in another treatment program, and who were 20%+ overweight.

In a later study, an 18-month randomised controlled trial was conducted with 60 obese people with sleep apnoea. It showed a statistically significant, though small, loss of 3.8kg in the group that also worked on stress reduction. The clinical significance was insignificant but the researchers pointed out that more intensive hypnotherapy may have been more successful.

It's not clear in the overview of how many sessions, what length, and crucially, whether therapists were using a protocol that limited their scope and flexibility. Protocols help researchers keep things standardised and it is more certain what is being measured; these are typically required for randomised control trials.

Unfortunately, real-world therapy is often a messy business and typically requires flexibility, often going off-piste and in unexpected directions. Therapy might, e.g., focus on self-esteem > to saying no to people > reducing workload at work > to reduce stress > to reduce comfort/emotional eating. It can take some time to work back through a chain like this from a client simply expressing a desire to lose weight.

References:

Cochrane, G., Friesen, J. (1986) Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 54(4): 489-492

Stradling, J., Roberts, D., Wilson, A. & Lovelock, F. (1998) 'Controlled trial of hypnotherapy for weight loss in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea' International Journal of Obesity Vol 22: 278–281