What Is Medical Hypnotherapy?

Clinical hypnosis, when applied to medical and health-related concerns, is often referred to as medical hypnosis or medical hypnotherapy.

Medical hypnotherapy is the therapeutic use of hypnosis to help people manage symptoms, responses, and challenges associated with health and medical conditions. It uses focused attention, therapeutic suggestion, imagery, and other hypnotic techniques to influence perceptions, sensations, emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and physiological responses.

Medical hypnotherapy is a complementary approach. It is designed to work alongside appropriate medical, psychological, or psychiatric care, not replace it.

Medical hypnotherapy is not primary medical care, does not replace medical diagnosis or treatment, and is not appropriate for medical or psychiatric emergencies.

What Is Hypnotherapy?

The word hypnotherapy combines hypnosis and therapy. Simply put, hypnotherapy is the therapeutic use of hypnosis to help facilitate changes in symptoms, perceptions, emotional responses, behaviors, and patterns of experience.

What distinguishes hypnotherapy from conventional conversation-based approaches is the deliberate use of the hypnotic state. Rather than relying solely on discussion and conscious analysis, hypnosis uses focused attention, imagery, therapeutic suggestion, and other hypnotic techniques to influence how experiences are processed by the brain and body.

In medical applications, these techniques may be used to help modify experiences such as discomfort, physiological arousal, gastrointestinal symptoms, sleep disturbance, hot flashes, nausea, and responses to illness or medical treatment.

What Is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a state of highly focused attention and absorption, often accompanied by deep relaxation and an increased responsiveness to therapeutic suggestion.

During hypnosis, attention becomes more concentrated and competing distractions become less prominent. This creates an opportunity to use carefully designed suggestions and imagery to influence perceptions, sensations, emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and, in some circumstances, physiological responses.

Hypnosis is not sleep, unconsciousness, or mind control. You remain aware and retain control over your behavior. Most people can hear what is being said, remember the experience, and choose whether or not to respond to a suggestion.

Although hypnosis can feel unusual, the capacity for intense absorption is familiar. Similar experiences can occur when we become deeply engrossed in a book, movie, music, creative activity, or thought. Clinical hypnosis deliberately harnesses this capacity for a therapeutic purpose.

What Happens During Hypnosis?

Three features are particularly important:

• Focused Attention: Attention becomes increasingly concentrated on selected thoughts, images, sensations, or therapeutic goals while competing distractions become less important.

• Responsiveness to Suggestion: Carefully constructed therapeutic suggestions can influence perception, sensation, emotion, cognition, and behavior. People differ in how strongly and in what ways they respond.

• Brain–Body Effects: Because perception, expectation, attention, emotion, and physiology continuously interact, hypnotic interventions can sometimes influence physical experiences and physiological responses, including pain, arousal, gastrointestinal symptoms, vasomotor symptoms, nausea, and sleep-related processes.

Hypnosis therefore provides a way of working intentionally with processes that normally operate automatically using the interaction between attention, expectation, perception, learning, and physiology for therapeutic purposes.

What Can Medical Hypnotherapy Help With?

The brain and body are in constant communication. Attention, expectation, emotion, learning, stress, and patterns of nervous-system activity can influence how symptoms are perceived and experienced.

Medical hypnotherapy uses this mind-body interaction therapeutically. Depending on the individual and the condition, clinical hypnosis may be used to help reduce symptoms, change responses, improve coping, and support greater comfort and quality of life.

At Dr. Flávio Clinical Hypnosis, I focus on five specific areas, plus one special program.

Click on any topic below to learn more.

Menopausal Adjustments & Midlife

Menopause can bring significant physiological, psychological, and life changes. Clinical hypnosis has been particularly well studied for menopausal vasomotor symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats, and is recognized as an evidence-based nonhormonal approach for these symptoms.

My work goes beyond symptom relief to help women navigate the broader adjustments of midlife with greater comfort, resilience, and a renewed sense of themselves.

Peaceful Sleep

Sleep can become disrupted by stress, persistent mental activity, conditioned arousal, life transitions, and other factors.

Clinical hypnosis uses focused attention, relaxation, imagery, and therapeutic suggestion to help reduce arousal, quiet persistent mental activity, and support the conditions associated with more restful sleep.

Because sleep disturbances can also be caused by medical or psychiatric conditions, appropriate medical evaluation remains an important part of care when indicated.

IBS & Gut Discomfort

The digestive system and brain communicate continuously through what is commonly called the gut-brain axis. In disorders such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), this communication can play an important role in how gastrointestinal sensations and symptoms are experienced.

Gut-directed hypnotherapy is one of the best-studied medical applications of clinical hypnosis. It uses hypnosis and targeted therapeutic suggestions to influence gut-related sensations, symptom perception, and patterns of gut-brain interaction.

This work is intended to complement appropriate medical evaluation and gastrointestinal care, not replace it.

Overcoming Social Isolation & Loneliness

Human connection is an important component of health and well-being. Chronic loneliness and social isolation can affect emotional health, physical health, and quality of life.

This program is informed in part by the work on loneliness and social connection brought to national attention by former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

Here, hypnosis is not presented as a medical treatment for loneliness. Instead, we use clinical hypnosis and related approaches to work with some of the internal patterns that can make connection difficult: withdrawal, fear, avoidance, loss of confidence, painful expectations, and deeply established interpersonal patterns.

The objective is not simply to feel less lonely. It is to help you become more able to create and sustain meaningful human connection.

Oncology Supportive Care

Cancer affects far more than the disease itself. Diagnosis, testing, procedures, treatment, uncertainty, and disruption of ordinary life can create an enormous physical and emotional burden.

Clinical hypnosis has been studied as a complementary approach for several experiences associated with cancer care, including procedural anxiety and distress, pain, nausea and vomiting, and treatment-related hot flashes in some populations.

My role is not to treat cancer. Oncology Supportive Care complements, not replaces, the care provided by your oncology team.

The purpose is to help you navigate the human experience of cancer care with greater comfort, emotional steadiness, and a greater sense of participation and control.

Special Program: The AI Reset

Artificial intelligence can be an extraordinary tool. But a tool can become problematic when it begins replacing something it was never designed to replace: human relationship, independent judgment, emotional processing, or engagement with real life.

The AI Reset is a structured program for people who have become caught in repetitive patterns of reliance on AI or conversational systems for reassurance, emotional support, decision-making, or companionship.

The objective is not to eliminate AI. It is to restore the proper relationship between the person and the technology so that AI becomes a tool again rather than a substitute for human connection, personal agency, or lived experience.

How to Begin

Getting started is simple.

1. Explore Your Area of Interest
Visit the page dedicated to your particular concern to learn more about how clinical hypnosis may be used, what the program involves, and whether it may be appropriate for you.

2. Schedule Your Appointment
Choose an available appointment through the online calendar, complete your registration, and confirm your session.

View Calendar & Schedule

3. Complete Your Intake
Before your first appointment, you will complete an intake form providing relevant  background information. This allows Dr. Flavio to better understand your circumstances before you meet.

For information about session structure, fees, payment, and what to expect, visit the Process & Fees Page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a referral from my physician?

No. A physician's referral is not required to schedule an appointment. You may contact Dr. Flavio directly.

When medical hypnotherapy relates to an existing medical condition, appropriate medical evaluation and ongoing medical care remain necessary.

Will you communicate with my physician or other healthcare professional?

Yes, when appropriate and with your written authorization.

With your permission, Dr. Flavio can communicate with members of your healthcare team when coordination would be helpful. Information is not shared with your healthcare providers without your authorization except when disclosure is otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Do you accept insurance?

No. Dr. Flavio Clinical Hypnosis does not bill insurance companies directly. Payment is made directly to the practice.

Because insurance plans and coverage vary considerably, you should contact your insurer directly to determine whether any reimbursement is available.

What does it cost and how many sessions will I need?

The structure of the work varies depending on the program and your individual circumstances.

Current fees, program structures, payment information, and other details are available on the Process & Fees Page and on the page dedicated to your area of interest.

Are results guaranteed?

No. Individual responses to hypnosis vary, and no particular outcome can be guaranteed.

Clinical hypnosis is an active, collaborative process. Your response may be influenced by many factors, including the nature of the problem, your responsiveness to hypnotic procedures, participation in the process, and the appropriate use of techniques between sessions.

Are sessions available in person or online?

Yes. Sessions are available in person and remotely by video appointment.

The appropriate format may depend on your location, circumstances, and the nature of the work.

Will I be in control during hypnosis?

Yes. Hypnosis is not mind control, unconsciousness, or sleep.

During clinical hypnosis, you remain aware and retain control over your behavior. Most people hear what is being said and remember the experience. You can communicate with Dr. Flavio during hypnosis and can choose to stop the process at any time.

Hypnosis is something you participate in, not something that is done to you.

Appointments

• In person by appointment at professional office locations throughout South and Central Florida

• Online for clients anywhere in the world

Services are offered in:

• English

• Español

• Português

Contact

Dr. Flavio Clinical Hypnosis

📞 (305) 505-3279

🌐 www.flavioc.com

Corporate Mailing Office

10 Canal Street, Suite 234

Miami Springs, Florida 33166

Appointments are not conducted at the corporate mailing office.