S1E21 The New Healthcare-Your Brain on Hypnosis: Pain, Prediction, and the Science of State Change with James Harrison

The New Healthcare |  In this episode, Dr. Adama Diarra sits down with James Harrison, certified clinical hypnotist and author of Mental Foraging, to explore what clinical hypnosis actually is — and what it isn't. James strips away the pop-culture myths and grounds the conversation in contemporary neuroscience: predictive processing, allostasis, mirror neurons, and the stability-plasticity problem. The two discuss how hypnosis works as a guided state change that can help patients access their own capacity for pain modulation, habit updating, and emotional reconsolidation. Practical territory covered includes chronic pain, IBS, fibromyalgia, smoking cessation, and sleep — along with clear guidance on which patients are good referral candidates and which aren't. James also shares simple, in-office techniques any clinician can use to begin shifting a patient's relationship to their pain signal — right in the exam room. For physicians looking to expand their integrative referral network, this episode offers both the neuroscience rationale and the clinical roadmap to do it thoughtfully.