Comfort Talk - procedural hypnosis for pain relief.

Dr. Elvira Lang, a former Associate Professor of radiology at Harvard University is the founder of Comfort Talk, a process of clinical hypnosis proven to be useful in reducing pain, anxiety and claustrophobia during diagnostic procedures. Her clinical trials have been published in peer-reviewed journals. She demonstrated that it was possible for patients to experience a state of relaxation and calmness without claustrophobia during biopsies or other procedures in noisy MRI machines, thereby reducing cancellations and costs to the hospitals and making the procedures much more comfortable and pleasant for the patients. Drs. David and Jannice Bowler trained  in Comfort Talk with Dr. Lang at the Canadian Society of Clinical Hypnosis, Ontario Division, in 2013.

Comfort talk uses several standard hypnosis scripts- a sort of one-size-fits-all approach suitable for training large numbers of x-ray or ultrasound technicians and nurses to use procedural hypnosis. 

Another approach for the experienced clinical hypnosis practitioner is to tailor the hypnotic experience to each unique individual so that it is even more effective.