Hypnotizability and immunological response to psychological intervention in HIV

Objective: This pilot study related hypnotizability to changes in HIV immune blood markers after two psychological interventions. Design: The mean of two blood assays prior to intervention was compared to the results of the blood assay after the intervention. Intervention: A course of four weekly 2-hour training sessions coupled with daily self-hypnosis practice was given to 13 participants with diagnosed HIV and for a further participants a similar course was given in a Japanese healing method called Johrei (a total of 22 participants). All were naive to anti-retroviral medication. Main outcome measures: CD4+ T cell counts, viral load of the HIV virus in blood. Results: When highly hypnotizable subjects were compared to those of lower hypnotizability in a repeated measures analysis, their CD4+ t-lymphocyte counts were significantly higher (p = 0.007). This was achieved by the highly hynotizable subjects non-significantly raising their CD4+ counts while the CD4+ counts of the less hynotizable subjects declined significantly (mean change = −79.4 p = 0.006). The differences in CD4+ T cell % of lymphocytes and the viral loads did not differ Conclusions: This pilot study indicates that hypnotizability may predict immunological response to psychological interventions in HIV.