Hypnosis in Second World War medicine
Hypnosis was used in some Second World War medical and psychiatric settings. That is part of the chronicle, not the modern trial base.
Last reviewed 27 August 2026
The Second World War pushed many psychological and anaesthetic methods into field and hospital use. Hypnosis appears in that wartime medical story (analgesia, anxiety, and psychiatry in some units), but the paper quality is what you would expect of a war, not of a 2010s RCT.
Key evidence
We treat this as an era, not a results table. Contemporary journals published case reports and teaching notes; they are not pooled here as if they were later randomised trials.
Post-war laboratory hypnosis (Hilgard), and later clinical trials are a different literature. Do not cite “used in WWII” as a reason a civilian course works.
Limitations
Patriotism, missing records, and small n make wartime claims easy to over-tell.
What we don't know yet
A complete order-of-battle of which hospitals used hypnosis, and for which indications, has not been assembled on this wiki.
This page is informational only.