Episode 52: How can hypnotherapy help cancer patients and their caregivers?

Patient From Hell (00:00.706)
Hi everyone. I'm Samira Daswani, the host of the podcast, The Patient From Hell. I am incredibly excited for today's episode. It's on a topic that I don't think I personally would have imagined a year ago having an episode on, which is why I'm particularly excited about it because I think it is a topic that is both interesting for me intellectually, but also I think has the...

experience of it being kind of in the cutting edge of next generation of the types of therapy, I'd imagine that we would be struck to see in the oncology world. So with that, I'm going to welcome Dr. Sonia to our podcast. Dr. Sonia, thank you so much for being here.

SONIA (00:44.691)
Thank you so much, Samira, for having me here.

Patient From Hell (00:48.174)
So I believe you just came back from India, specifically Goa. So one, two days from being back, I cannot imagine recording an episode and being not as jet lagged as you are. So I'd love to actually start there. So can you talk about your global experience? Because you've worked in a lot of different countries and now you're here in the US. So what brought you here?

SONIA (00:51.14)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (01:14.467)
Yeah, you have described it very well, Samira, global experience. Still, a few years ago, I used to think myself, why have I been globetrotting? You know, and then the purpose showcases itself, especially our move to the United States. So just in brief, I have been a curious soul, I would say, since childhood, adventurous as well. And I always wanted to somehow study abroad.

And that opportunity came and I did my medicine from Russia, studied in a completely new language, which was exciting. At that age, of course, when you are 18, you can conquer the world, literally. And coming back to India and practicing as a fresh physician, entering into the medical world, getting married, going to Singapore, practicing there, moving to Dubai,

Patient From Hell (01:47.807)
I did it.

SONIA (02:12.323)
another decade of practicing and till then I was literally I would say a happy-go-lucky medical professional who just loved what she was doing till there were some challenges which hit close to home. My mom getting cancer and she fought it like a tigress twice. Ovarian cancer she had and I was you know her shadow. I was everywhere. I saw the journey a cancer patient goes through

being next to my mom. And coming out of cancer, it was the invisible, I want to use the word demon, because at that time it was a demon for me. It was depression, which was invisible, yet so powerful that it just completely, you know, shifted the personality of my ever so jovial mother.

And I was married, I was in Dubai, and she used to narrate to me that she's not feeling good. And then she started to talk about that there are these thoughts, these dark thoughts to end my life. And I feel I have been always a very optimistic person and we don't want to think of the worst ever. And she was on medication. She was on antidepressants. And like any other medical doctor, I thought.

It's okay, she is on medication. Still, my father called me that fine morning, which was when the ground completely shattered for the entire family, I would say, that she tried to commit suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of the building. And how she survived is miraculous. Now, when I look back, I understand what that episode did.

Her fall was broken by a parapet and literally it was, no bones were broken just on the face, the nose, teeth, and there was a big gash on the forehead. And I rushed to India, she recuperated from that, but her nose was deformed. Her beautiful face because of the nose was deformed and looking at her face,

Patient From Hell (04:25.719)
Hmm.

SONIA (04:31.407)
reminded me of being a failure as a doctor. I just took it so personally. I think, you know, when trauma hits, all of us see it in our own light and we feel guilty that I missed something and we did surgeries. But every time this nose would not be OK. And I confided after almost a year to my dad that I feel so bad that it was my mistake. I missed something.

Patient From Hell (04:43.094)
Yeah.

SONIA (05:00.775)
And he was like, you don't know right now what happened. It happened for a reason and you will know. And that is where the doctor in me was not satisfied writing prescriptions. I truly felt that we are missing something huge in the medical field. We are not looking at a patient in the holistic way, which we should be. So I'm talking of mainstream medicine, of course, and that is when hypnotherapy happened to me. And Samira, that was – I cannot describe.

Patient From Hell (05:28.706)
Hmm.

SONIA (05:29.979)
was I cannot describe. This is 10 years ago. I talk about this topic, this subject. It just lightens me up because it has given me a new light, a new direction, a new purpose. Understanding human mind, especially the power of the subconscious mind, what I was studying as a student, made me think why the hell literally this subject is not taught in medical school? Why we doctors don't know about this? Why we don't know?

What is the emotional impact on the physical health of a person? Why psychology and physiology are treated differently? And all these whys opened up a new door. And I started practicing both hypnotherapy and traditional medicine in my clinic in Dubai. I was the only doctor, I think, who was doing that. And patients were lining up. And amazing shifts were happening.

Patient From Hell (06:06.798)
Thanks for watching!

SONIA (06:24.495)
Medication reductions were happening, patients were feeling joyful without being on prescriptions. The true health, holistic well-being, I would say, was very evident. And from there, it was like, OK, I've hit the glass ceiling. I think the next step is ready and that was the United States. It's like the big dream. Let's go to US. Let's start fresh and I now proudly say that I'm a doctor who has let go of a stethoscope

because I treat my patients purely through the power of mind. And that is what has happened since last five years being in United States and a very joyful and very rewarding journey, so far.

Patient From Hell (07:07.522)
Thank you for sharing that. I have so many questions for you. Before we can go to the natural place where this episode is going to go, which is hypnotherapy, if you're open to it, I'd love to talk about your mom's experience. Because I do think that the mental health aspect of both cancer patients, the family and survivorship is, we don't talk about it.

SONIA (07:13.298)
Awesome.

SONIA (07:18.751)
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Patient From Hell (07:35.094)
So if you don't mind, let's talk a little bit more about it before we do that. Can you tell me a little bit more about where your mom was? Because I think she was in India, right? When this was happening.

SONIA (07:42.823)
Yes, she was. She was in India. We are three sisters. All three of us were married and all outside India. But at that time, when this was happening, one of my sister, she was visiting them. And I told my family, my father, my sister, do not leave her alone. And when something has to happen, it's like just that five minute where you're going downstairs to get some groceries or something, and something took over.

She still would say that I have no recall of what I did, why I did it. It was as if she was, you know, in the grip of a mental program which was not in her conscious awareness.

Patient From Hell (08:27.394)
Hmm.

Patient From Hell (08:33.038)
Can you talk a little bit more about mental health and if you can or want to talk about mental health as it pertains to India?

SONIA (08:43.099)
Hmm. My recent experience, because I've just come from home, I was asked so many questions by fellow countrymen that, you know, you have gone to the United States, you are touching new horizons there, you are receiving warm reception and success there. Why are you in India? And I was like, I'm an Indian,

Patient From Hell (08:55.098)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (09:11.215)
of course, I want to come back home and my journey started with my mom. And I wanted to give this gift, which I now feel I have, through this retreat, this healing program, which we have initiated for cancer survivors, I wanted my mom to go through it. So that full circle happened this time in Goa. And what I saw in Goa,

the group, the people, and as we were trying to promote this, the awareness about mental health is now warming up. People are now slowly opening up, not at all as how it is in United States, I'm pretty sure you know about that as well. It's still a hush-hush when we spoke of cancer survivors and the depression, anxiety, and all the things they go through, people did not

want to acknowledge it in India. They were like, "I'm done with this. I can live my life in a shadow, but I don't want to see that word ever again." So there was some resistance, but of course, we had amazing success because as I was sharing with you, the participants who enrolled for this, they were all of them were mostly above 70. So, you know, our parents age group, I don't know if it was my mom's blessing, which

got this group right there, but I thought that, "Wow will they be open to a modality they don't know of? Will they be open to perhaps find a closure towards their past in this stage?" But it was amazing, Samira They all came in completely open-minded. They all opened up and literally in four days, we saw new energy field in each and every person sitting in front. Joyful tears,

energy of hope, a new sense of trust towards life appearing in just four days.

Patient From Hell (11:13.386)
So I'm gonna, I'd love to talk a bit more about that, if you're okay with it. I want us to talk about health, stigma, cancer in India. And maybe I can share a bit about kind of my experience with it, is when I got diagnosed, I was very public about it from the very get go. I wasn't telling the world I was diagnosed, but I wasn't hiding that I was diagnosed. It was kind of just like, well, if it's relevant and you're in my life, of course I'm gonna tell you.

SONIA (11:17.907)
Sure. Absolutely.

Patient From Hell (11:41.378)
That was definitely not the case for my family and not because my parents were not willing to talk about it. I think they were still navigating how to tell people that there is that moment of, like, how much do you reveal, how much do you not reveal, this was COVID here, or we actually didn't tell my grandfather. So my granddad did not know that I got diagnosed. And, um,

And I understand it. I actually never told him that either because I think the belief was he, he loved me a lot and I don't think he could have handled it and people were worried about him not being able to handle it, so that was one, one aspect of it. The second aspect of it is of course, since me being fairly public about my experience, my family's become public about the experience. And what we have started seeing in India is within

SONIA (12:14.953)
Hmm.

SONIA (12:25.955)
Hmm

Patient From Hell (12:32.37)
if you are able to capture the person into the cancer community, people actually want the community, but until you're able to pull them into the community, it is all within the hush corridors of the community, right? Every, like, I mean, I'm just going to pick on breast cancer, right? One of the most common types of cancers in women. How many female breast cancer people do I know who are Indian? Maybe under five.

SONIA (12:36.499)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

SONIA (12:49.34)
Yes.

SONIA (12:54.547)
Yeah.

SONIA (13:02.523)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes.

Patient From Hell (13:03.378)
Which is, it's just not possible, right? Like the numbers just go and support that. So the reason I talk about that is I think cancer alone is stigmatized, so if you just look at that, it's stigmatized. Then we look at mental health, just broadly speaking mental health. I would argue it's very similar in India. Yes, it's changed. Yes, there's now therapy. Yes, you have psychotherapists who are providing care. Yes, there's access to antidepressants. And yes, all that is happening, but it is very nascent in that country. And...

SONIA (13:13.448)
Yes.

SONIA (13:29.928)
Totally.

Patient From Hell (13:31.794)
let's forget suicide for a second. I mean talking just straight up vanilla depression, not that there is vanilla depression, but just straight up MDD, major depressive disorder, is still not fully accepted in our community. Now when we intersect the two, which is you look at cancer and you look at mental health, I just I don't even know where you begin to be completely honest. I don't know where you start with that because there is so much cultural baggage

SONIA (13:37.985)
Mm.

SONIA (13:44.06)
Yes.

Hmm.

SONIA (13:54.883)
Yeah.

Patient From Hell (14:00.726)
that is existing, at least from my experience in our community, that I don't even know where you start with that. And I think that's actually to some extent true in the US as well. I don't think India is that different than the US. It's just culturally we're talking very different societal structures. We're talking about different ways that you interact with life and people and embrace private versus public. Like I think those things are different. So I'd love for you to react to that because I think if I just imagine your mom

being in India, I think she was at this intersection. And I think being in either camp is hard than being at the intersection is, I mean, I generally don't know how you navigate that.

SONIA (14:41.704)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and again, in her age group, I would say, when you are feeling that way, it is the awareness is such, "Oh, come on, shake it off. You've got everything what are you depressed about?" But only when you understand this disease, you understand that the person cannot shake it off. It is real. It is very real.

Patient From Hell (14:54.743)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (15:08.199)
But because there is lack of awareness, even the family members or friends don't know how to actually help out this person. And then the person starts to shut off because no one is understanding. And she found that voice with me because I was in the medical field, so she could express it to me. And that is where I personally took it on me that I failed, that I was maybe not understanding the severity of it and not thinking that this will happen.

But I completely agree with you, Samira. The campaign which we had to bring it to India, it took a lot of force and energy to say, "Hey, it's not just cancer. You need to literally, you have to thrive. You have survived, you have to thrive, and you know the truth. So please come out and hold our hands because we are coming for you." And you very correctly said that when you create that community of survivors, they open up,

but otherwise they are like, "Don't pinpoint me. I just want to merge with the society and just go on with life."

Patient From Hell (16:16.907)
Hmm. So I guess my follow up to that is, how did you end up in hypnotherapy? Like how did you discover that as a modality?

SONIA (16:27.167)
So this is how we say that when you seek, you find. So when all of this happened with my mom and I had questions as a doctor and that curious mind was always active. I used to call myself a chronic learner till hypnotherapy happened. I was perhaps searching, my soul was searching for something. And a colleague of mine told me that

there is someone doing this teaching course in hypnotherapy. And I had read some articles about hypnotherapy, working on fear of flying, smoking, and I was fascinated by the subject. So when she said someone is teaching it, I was like, I want to sign up. And that's it. That one class turned me around completely. And I was like, I am in it for good. And the journey is continuing from there.

Patient From Hell (17:25.624)
Okay, so let's maybe start with, I think you know this about me, which is I'm just a very, very skeptical human being. I just show up that way. There is a reason our podcast is called The Patient From Hell. I am skeptical of Western medicine, I'm skeptical of Eastern, I'm just skeptical across the board. I just show up, I need to understand, it's how I show up.

SONIA (17:33.766)
Mm-mm-mm.

SONIA (17:38.847)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (17:50.211)
I would see it as very curious, which is fascinating for me. I have been there.

Patient From Hell (17:55.158)
I think that's definitely true. I am very curious. I also just have a high bar on what I end up believing, what I don't believe. So the reason I wanted to go there is because I think I probably, in this case, representing a decent chunk of the population, which is you hear hypnotherapy and you go, what are we talking about? And this cannot possibly be something that is real. Right? So in my head, I think, I don't know, like

SONIA (18:00.934)
Sure.

SONIA (18:20.457)
Hmm.

Patient From Hell (18:24.73)
magician on stage providing hypnosis and then the crowd, I mean the person who's getting hypnotized is then you know made to do a hilarious somewhat humiliating act and that's, talking like a chicken or something you know that's art which may or may not be real which may or may not be kind of a actor acting on stage right. So can you help us understand I know that's not what you're talking about, but can you help us understand the difference between that and what it is you're talking about?

SONIA (18:26.516)
Hmm.

SONIA (18:36.595)
clucking like a chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

SONIA (18:55.807)
Sure, so it's fascinating for me to, you know, when you enter into a subject and you understand it from the depths and then you see what all it can do, and then you view the perception which the outside world has, it is again, super fascinating, I'll use the same word, because how media and entertainment, how much impression they can create on the psyche of humanity

is mind-blowing because what you see in you know movies or stage shows or magicians doing it's called stage hypnosis. It is used for entertainment but what is completely not known about this particular word is that it belonged to the medical field. It has a history of over 300 years being in the medical field.

So when you now after the podcast, perhaps go and Google hypnosis and the connection with the medical field, you will see it going back in the 1700s where the physician named Mesmer started to use this, some magnetism he used to call it where his patients would come out of hysteria, psychosis,

and he started using the practice which fascinated other physicians and surgeons and in those times there was no anesthesia and the mortality rate in surgery was very high because patients used to die of pain and these surgeons started using hypnosis to perform surgeries including amputations. And this is where the medical field completely took over because they were fascinated by the

Patient From Hell (20:41.379)
Hmm.

SONIA (20:49.759)
and the subconscious, understanding the placebo effect, understanding auto-suggestions, how the patients were responding when they were given a medication with a suggestion that this is going to work for you and miraculous healings were seen. Till World War II happened and the magicians took it away. And I usually say that especially post-COVID,

there is a lot of awareness. There is a shift in human consciousness. And people are wanting more answers, including the medical side. Doctors are yearning and searching for more, as well. And there are many physicians like myself who are now coming back to retrieving what belonged to us, which is hypnosis.

Human mind, I mean, we humans, we call ourselves social animals. Our biggest strength is the cognitive capability to think, our mind. This is our biggest resource, but right now it has become the biggest curse, as people say, the mental illness and all of that stuff, but if it can cause the illness, it also has the program to cure it. So most fascinating, most powerful resource, most underutilized resource,

and hypnosis is rather hypnotherapy. I will talk about the difference between the two because that is also misunderstood many times. Hypnosis is a state, an altered state, which we humans experience almost on daily basis. So many times since childhood, each one of us has experienced this. Like, let me give you an example. Has it ever happened to you that you are, you know, driving on a very usual route

of yours and you are very deep in your thoughts. And don't even realize when you reached home, it's like altered state or you are watching a concert or you are in theater and you are so mesmerized with the performance that the world ceases to exist for you. Playing music, listening to music, you are in a very different awareness. This is the state of hypnosis. This is where a person

Patient From Hell (22:58.05)
next time.

SONIA (23:09.707)
is away from the conscious thinking and is in a state where they are in the subconscious, connected with beautiful memories, energies or whatever you call, but it's the same place has our biggest baggage as well.

Patient From Hell (23:27.746)
What's the difference between that state and, I'm forgetting the author's name, the author who wrote the book Flow. Because there's also flow state, right? Which is where you go into that kind of, I don't want to say focus, but it's not quite that, where you're so in resonance with what you are doing that you kind of lose track of time, you sort of lose track of everything around you, you're sort of within this, I'm going to say almost like this bubble area for a while.

SONIA (23:36.924)
Mmm.

SONIA (23:56.168)
Yes, yes.

Patient From Hell (23:56.678)
What's the difference between that and what you're talking about?

SONIA (24:00.327)
It's all the same. Somehow we have stayed away from using the term hypnosis. Hypnosis is in everything, Samira When you meditate, where are you? When you are actually in daydreaming, where are you? It's all of these states where your actual reality ceases to exist. You are in trance and it is self-inflicted.

Patient From Hell (24:15.95)
Yeah.

Patient From Hell (24:24.662)
Hmm.

SONIA (24:27.571)
Sometimes I tell people that, you know, people who have gone through traumas and have the diagnosis of PTSD, you actually have to detrans them. They are living in trance. That trauma is over, so you don't always have to say that, "Oh, you are taking me in transfer," No, no, no. I often tell them I'm actually detransing you because your reality is different right now and you're not even seeing it. I'm bringing you to the present. You have lost yourself

in that past. So there are different ways to understand this, but because of the stigma with the word, because of the entertainment industry, because of the word mind control, people don't want to use this. And there are many other similar words which have come up, but it is the state of trance.

Patient From Hell (25:15.502)
Interesting. Okay, so maybe let's go from there to hypnotherapy versus hypnosis.

SONIA (25:20.291)
Mm-hmm. So when you do therapy in this state, it's called hypnotherapy. So hypnotherapy is like a difference between cognitive therapy and hypnotherapy would be, you are consciously talking about an issue with the person. And I guess you might agree with me, as I have seen being a physician as well. When someone starts therapy, it's almost like an ongoing thing.

It's like years and years people are going and when they are too full, they need to see their therapist who went out and then continue with their life. So the difference in hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy is in hypnotherapy, we go to the root cause of what is actually boiling and steaming inside of you that you continuously need to end out. You go to that burner to turn off the flame, to understand how and where it started.

Patient From Hell (26:11.778)
Hmm.

SONIA (26:19.023)
And it's getting triggered again and again. And you are holding on to this baggage of these emotions which you need to vent out and now you're going to your therapist to vent it out. But it is a process to deflate, not exactly reaching to the core issue. So hypnotherapy as a modality is very, it has very clear boundaries. It is not forever. You come with a goal. That goal is delivered through experiences which...

are somewhere lost like a maze in your subconscious. And I say that your subconscious is like the hard disk, and life experiences sometimes create corrupted files, emotions which we are unable to digest. And we say, OK, done and dusted. I move on. No, but that energy is still bleeping in the subconscious. So we go to press Control or Delete to reboot your system, literally. And it is very definitive. It is very clear cut,

goal-oriented, very focused therapy, and the results are magnificent. As I said, being in this, I'm like, every human being should know about this, that the resources are within. All the logical answers to your illogical questions are on your own hard disk. Let's go there and read your own manual, which is inside of you, soo it's fascinating and it has very deep understanding, spiritual part as well, Samira, which...

Many people would ask what is my purpose? Why am I here? Why did this happen to me? But we keep on asking and seeking answers outside when the answers are inside. And that's where your subconscious zone is the decoding area that you need to go.

Patient From Hell (28:04.482)
I want to ask, maybe draw two parallels, because I had a suspicion we would end up in this. And I was thinking about it in prep for our conversation today. When I was thinking about you and I had a couple of conversations, right? And I look, and there are, it strikes me, as there are parallels between what you are describing and two other fields that are sort of adjacent. The first is

SONIA (28:07.461)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (28:14.568)
Okay.

SONIA (28:19.28)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (28:29.919)
Mm hmm. Right.

Patient From Hell (28:33.838)
is psychedelic based therapy. Right, so when I hear you talk about reboot the system, hard disk or corrupted files, is this like you go into like, quote unquote deep into the mind and the subconscious and you're sort of like, not, you're almost like fixing it. I say that in sort of air quotes. I don't mean actual fixing it, but there is a way of like dealing with trauma and there is a way of dealing with other sort of mental health.

SONIA (28:36.615)
Right.

Yes.

SONIA (28:42.537)
Yes.

Patient From Hell (28:58.962)
related issues, it sounds a lot like what we are now trying to see with ketamine based therapy, with mushrooms, with the use of MDMA and addressing people. So there seems to be a lot of parallels there. So that's one. The second actually starts to intervene into kind of where you were going with it, which is spirituality. And the closest thing I have found that sort of bridges the world of like...

SONIA (29:09.876)
Totally.

SONIA (29:19.743)
Hmm.

Patient From Hell (29:26.978)
true India yogi meditation and Western evidence-based clinical trial land is the work of John Kabat-Zinn and mindfulness-based stress reduction and all of his work on how to use the power of the mind to go into these altered mental states to deal with trauma and in his case pain, specifically when it comes to a piece of cancer population. So I'd love for you to talk a bit about...

SONIA (29:30.049)
Hmm.

SONIA (29:34.591)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (29:39.039)
Bye.

Patient From Hell (29:55.458)
Have you seen these parallels? Are these essentially different modalities that address the same thing? Are they doing different things? A little bit more on kinda, how does hypnotherapy and or hypnosis, how does it compare contrast with psychedelic assisted therapy and or with mindfulness-based stress reduction?

SONIA (30:17.971)
So I would say that, you know, in many ways, these are the spokes of the same umbrella, but because we humans all are at a different level of consciousness. So to some, this resonates to some that resonates, but the end goal is to go within because the answers are within. What we have felt and we have lost track of is we have been searching

outside. So you talk about mindfulness or psychedelics or hypnotherapy, it's all taking you where the issue is, which we try our best to run away from. You know, the defense mechanisms and coping ways and all of that. It's like anything but here. And the beauty with the psychedelics is that if at all it is that therapy is

again taken into consideration and it is a guided experience. It is a spiritual experience. But what is the risk of that? And again, seeing how it is being used right now by the younger generation, it is more for an entertainment purpose. It's more again to run away from the stresses of life. And the main risk is

dependency on psychedelics now, which again is not the solution. So that is that very thin wall where we are that, yes, it is amazing, but how are you using it? Do you understand, as Spider-Man says, with power comes responsibility? So it's like, OK, there is that therapist, that psychedelic. But do you know what you are actually trying to achieve through this?

Patient From Hell (31:46.695)
No? Hmm.

SONIA (32:10.423)
Is there someone navigating you through this? And are you OK to let go of the crutches when you are ready to run, or you will continue to walk your life on these crutches? So these are different ways I would see this. And the parallel which you are drawing is completely right. It is a different buffet. Who wants what? What resonates with whom?

SONIA (00:01.249)
So yeah, these are different flavors available out there, which one you pick and choose. But the journey is, as I said, it's to go within and to understand your own issues from a different perspective.

Patient From Hell (00:15.382)
Dr. Sonia, I'd love for us to make it more, how do I say this, not so much theoretical because we've been kind of in this theoretical underpinning, but if you don't mind giving some examples of, what are we talking about? So let's just take survivors, let's take cancer survivors, what exactly are we talking about here? And if you don't mind giving us an example or a couple of examples, I think that would be great.

SONIA (00:22.05)
Mm hmm. So.

SONIA (00:38.977)
Sure. So let me talk about both sides of a person who is dealing with chronic disease, for example. Whenever a chronic disease diagnosis is made, for the patient, the first thing which comes to the person is that now I'm dependent on medications for life, and I have to make major changes in my lifestyle. So it is, in a way, a trauma in its own self. You talk about.

you know, having a gut issue or you talk about hypertension, diabetes, all of these are chronic issues which completely bind you with medication and the medical world. So let's take one example of a case which I had where everything was stumbling down with one diagnosis this patient got and she always mentioned herself as an anxious person and she said that she had

SONIA (01:35.997)
uh till there were stressors in life and now she started having gastric reflux as well and of course going to her primary physician um, endoscopy was done, there was a small ulcer, there was a bacterial infection h. pylori, and the treatment in the medical world for h. pylori is very you know strong antibiotics you have to take weeks and weeks of antibiotics and

the word introduced in the person's or the patient's psyche was, if you don't treat this, this can be precancerous. And that's it. And in her reality, she had a friend of hers who had stomach cancer, and she was battling stomach cancer. So now imagine just this very primitive, just a suggestion the doctor gave, what impact it had on her. And she's like, no, I'm in it.

I want all the treatment. Now, the more antibiotics she's taking, the more her IBS is worsening. The more her IBS is worsening, she is losing her sleep because now every time she's out there in the real world, she has to look for restroom. She cannot, she was a teacher and she cannot teach properly, she cannot socialize and there is no solution the medical world is able to give her. And now there is depression. Another prescription comes in. This is the stage she reached me.

That one after the other, the ground is slipping underneath my feet and I don't know what to do. My physical health, it started with, now it is affecting the mental health and it is worsening the physical health. And we started working, as I said, going within, going to the root cause. And her case is in my book. And, you know, this was, the therapy was done a few years ago. And where she is now, when she reads

her own case study, she's like, I don't recognize this person. Because where she is right now, there is hardly any prescription dependency. She can eat what she wants to eat. Sleep is beautiful. She is socializing. She is enjoying life like any young woman should. And there is no binding factor related to the mental, physical and the medical world, which is restricting any aspect of her life.

SONIA (04:00.669)
And this happened, I think, when we started working on her. This was 8 sessions. Eight sessions, Samira. This person was losing hope on life, starting with IBS and gastritis. This is how the tumbling down effect can be and it is real. It is very, very real in patients we see or in the social gathering or in friendships you see. People are struggling through this. Migraine, for example.

People who go through migraine, they know how debilitating it is. It just stops them from living in that moment and there is no cure.

Patient From Hell (04:36.762)
So doc, here's where I'm struggling with this. So the patient story, very real. I can come up with like 8 examples just from my own lived experience that track that. So that feels very real. But the problem feels very real. The solution feels very miraculous. So now the place I'm struggling is when we think about how, like I'm asking to put the clinical hat on, right? Like you're an MD, you're like trained as a clinician.

SONIA (04:42.913)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (05:03.041)
Yes.

Patient From Hell (05:05.49)
There is, at least in the US, a very specific bar that is held for what qualifies as a, quote unquote, medical intervention and what does not. And that bar is held, I mean, I'm just going to simplify it, which is in order to be, quote unquote, evidence-based in the context of Western medicine, you need to have demonstrated that an intervention has successfully

SONIA (05:18.297)
Hmm.

Patient From Hell (05:31.458)
demonstrate statistically significantly different results in a presumably randomized control trial, right? And for interventions, psychotherapy doesn't quite fall into this bucket, but for interventions, I'm just gonna pick on a drug to be given to the public. It has to go through the FDA. Now, when we hold that bar up, I'm gonna pick on a not psychotherapy or mental health, nothing in that world. I'm gonna use something in nutrition.

SONIA (05:39.499)
Yes.

SONIA (05:50.359)
Yes.

SONIA (05:59.766)
Mm-hmm.

Patient From Hell (06:00.086)
A lot of things that we know have evidence, they don't actually hold up to the bar that we are talking about to be truly included in clinical practice. I'm going to pick on something super like, I'm actually intentionally pick on something that I think the body of evidence is actually very compelling, but you see very spotty adherence to use, right? Vitamin D supplementation.

SONIA (06:12.919)
Right.

SONIA (06:21.278)
Hmm.

SONIA (06:24.557)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Patient From Hell (06:27.01)
Tons and tons and tons of evidence to show that in a whole variety of cases, supplementing and ensuring that your vitamin D levels are up to kind of a certain threshold is almost necessary to address things like fatigue and to address things like exhaustion to exist in the oncology world, lots of use of vitamin D, right? But even that, if you look at actual clinical practice, it's incredibly spotty. And that is something that would never go through the FDA as a

SONIA (06:36.692)
Right.

Patient From Hell (06:55.906)
quote unquote drug, but from a supplement perspective, it actually has a pretty, I would argue, robust body of evidence behind it. Now, when we hold that bar up against something like hypnotherapy, how do you wrap your head around that? Because I genuinely struggle with that because for me, it's like, personally, I will experiment with anything because I'm like,

SONIA (06:57.494)
Hmm.

SONIA (07:04.074)
Right.

SONIA (07:09.43)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (07:21.037)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Patient From Hell (07:23.234)
I'm a scientist, I can experiment, I can figure out whether it works for me individually or not. So that's my personal reaction to anything that is not, quote unquote, evidence-based. However, I think for the broad population, I do think that we need to maintain a bar that does some version of quality control isn't quite the right word, but some version of

what meets this bar is then rolled out to the public, right? So I'd love your reaction on that, wearing a clinical hat. And when we're talking about something like hypnotherapy.

SONIA (07:53.258)
Right.

SONIA (07:59.857)
Yeah. So the again, the surprising thing is that when you research or when you search this word research in hypnosis and hypnotherapy, there is so much work which has already been done in last few decades because we have been curious to bring this modality back into the medical field. Many successful researchers have done this

and the focus has been pain management. The focus has been anxiety, depression. And when you specifically dive into hypnosis, hypnotherapy in oncology, starting from the diagnostic procedures to the treatment to the quality of life in survivors, there have been researchers established already showcasing the efficacy

of the power of mind, but somewhere I feel maybe I'm not sure this is a drug-free treatment. This is tapping on your own resources. If the humanity learns this, where are we going to go? We are not going to be dependent on the pharma. So it's like a handful of doctors who are fighting for this, who are bringing this research forward. My own project, which I'm doing for survivors, I call it Measurable Healing, because as you correctly said, we need to wear that,

that clinical hat to showcase this is evidence-based, so we are doing our own research. And so far it is a small group. We want to have at least a global survivor population enrolled in this, but what we are seeing right now in this smallest of timeframe, we are seeing 84% reduction in anxiety already. And this research will be published very soon once it is over,

so there is research evidence. This modality is evidence-based, but the research has been done, of course, in specific zones. Say, for example, you might have heard about the research with hypnosis and IBS. It is very well established. And in Mayo Clinic or in Stanford, doctors are recommending IBS and hypnosis as a treatment. Smoking cessation, I myself am right now...

SONIA (10:17.873)
in connection with a medical institute in Louisiana, where the oncologists are feeling frustrated that the population who gets diagnosed with head and mouth cancer, they continue to smoke. Isn't that sad? Cancer is diagnosed still, they cannot let go of cigarettes and the physicians, the surgeons, are the head of the department, she read my book and there is a chapter

Patient From Hell (10:37.472)
Mm.

SONIA (10:43.209)
written about smokers because there is a psychological hook which is not letting them quit. And she's like, the chemotherapy efficacy reduces, radiation efficacy reduces because of smoking. Let's do a research on this. Can we work, can we showcase the efficacy of hypnotherapy on oncology patients post-diagnosis, quitting to smoke? So that project is ongoing. So a lot of good stuff is happening. But what I'm trying to say is there

Patient From Hell (10:58.35)
Hmm.

SONIA (11:12.849)
evidence already existing in these certain pockets where usually you would prescribe medications indefinitely. There is a good research available.

Patient From Hell (11:24.638)
So there are actually two things. So I think after our first conversation, I did go down the rabbit hole of what exists out there. Kind of what I do. And yeah, there is research. I do think there is research. I don't think there is lack of research. I think my question is more, what is the bar? And I think you're getting at it, right? Which is the reason I wanted to talk about this is because I think the bar we use for medication

SONIA (11:31.038)
Hehehe

SONIA (11:50.093)
Mm-hmm.

Patient From Hell (11:51.71)
I think needs to naturally be different than the bar we use for therapy. Because if you think about the, um, risk benefit analysis of chemotherapy, because we're talking about it, there actually is significant risk when you take a chemo drug. It is not toxic. There is a downside to chemotherapy as well, which is you do stack on both near term and long-term side effects. That if with long-term use can actually be pretty debilitating.

SONIA (11:56.919)
Alright.

SONIA (12:01.677)
Mm-hmm.

SONIA (12:21.665)
Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Patient From Hell (12:21.838)
Threat analysis is risk management analysis. I'm curious from your perspective, how do you think about that with hypnotherapy? What is the risk associated with hypnotherapy? That can go wrong?

SONIA (12:32.009)
Well, you become, you just become more aware of everything. That's the risk because some people live in denial their whole life. You just become more aware. There is no other risk. As I said, you are sometimes not taking them in trance. You are detrancing them. You are bringing them to the present. I'll give you an example of a recent case during the survivorship program. This very sweet elderly,

Patient From Hell (12:48.95)
You need to answer them.

SONIA (13:01.597)
lady who came in after surviving. First it was skin cancer, then it was brain tumor and she had a stroke. And her main complaint as a survivor was fatigue. And she said, when I asked her, you know, scored it, she said 8 out of 10. And that stops her from being present. She has a beautiful family, kids, grandkids, you know, and she's like, I just don't have any energy.

to be with anyone, I just want to sleep off and let the day pass by me, and her daughter had worked with me. She sensed amazing shifts in her own self. When I told her about this, she was first skeptical. I don't even know if mom can actually come because she's always so tired. And I was like, that is exactly the reason bring her because we need to de-trance her. When you talk to this woman,

she would describe, narrate to you in vivid of the memories how the diagnosis was made when stroke happened as if it's happening right now. But when you talk to her about where she is right now, it's a blur. It was very clear that she is trapped in the past. Three days, once again, the fatigue, which was 8 out of 10, which was making her sleep almost 14 hours in a day.

Patient From Hell (14:16.423)
Living.

SONIA (14:26.761)
This person was taking a walk by the beach one and a half miles. She was climbing stairs. Her daughter was like, what has happened? It was just coming to the present. And that is the power of mind. It can take you and make you lose yourself, but it can bring you back as well. But it has to be, you know, the when you spoke about the bar, I feel what is lacking is specific protocols.

So each person who will come into this modality will do their own understanding from where they have come. And that is where it can differ that, okay, what protocol did you use? What protocol did you use? So that needs to be navigated. And that is what I myself am trying to do in this program. We have created a protocol and we are studying this protocol. So this protocol can be duplicated anywhere with the percentage of shifts, which we are seeing.

So yeah, I agree with you. The bar for me, I feel, yes, it's the protocol.

Patient From Hell (15:29.07)
That's actually super helpful. I'm super glad you said that because I think that is something that, again, my very personal non-clinical clinician opinion is I think that was a miss with CBT as well. Where even today, when you go to different practitioners of therapy, you see a wide range of what is actually done in the clinic. And as a patient, I love therapists. I have found my people.

SONIA (15:41.354)
Yes.

Patient From Hell (15:57.878)
I'm very happy that way, but I did have to shop and the variability is actually quite surprising. And I think you're right about the protocol and I love the protocol and I love the fact that it's finite. Because that's the other piece, right? If a protocol is infinite, there's no exit loop, right? Where with the finite protocol, it is something that you can theoretically then measure and

SONIA (16:06.997)
Yeah.

SONIA (16:17.709)
Yeah. Yes.

SONIA (16:24.866)
totally.

Patient From Hell (16:27.422)
demonstrate improvement or not improvement in a population. So I really appreciate you sharing that. We could probably talk for hours, but I'm watching the clock and I'm realizing that I think we should probably wrap up. So my question actually is, you said something in the very, very beginning of the conversation I was hoping to go back to and close out with, because you sort of stayed laser focused on the patient so far, the patient by EDS and the chronic condition, the survivor.

SONIA (16:52.225)
Mm-hmm.

Patient From Hell (16:55.862)
But you said something that was, I thought, so profound that I wanted to underscore it, which was, you used the words, I was my mom's shadow.

And I think there is something in there that I'd love for you to talk about, which is the caregiver experience, because we've spoken very much focused on the patient experience. And one of the things that I know that my mom went through, because my mom was my shadow going through treatment, is that the impact on the caregiver is sometimes, I think, much worse than the patient.

And I would love for you to talk a little bit about that because I know the program is for survivors. I know we're talking about protocols and evidence generation and the survivor population. But I would love for you to talk a little bit about the caregiver as kind of our wrap up and close out our session with that.

SONIA (17:46.125)
Sure, I am so, so glad that you caught on that one narrative, which I had, because to sum it all up, I would just say that when I entered into the modality to learn hypnotherapy, as a student, you are supposed to work on yourself. And this is 10 years ago when I was called to the demo chair. My teacher asked me, so what issue do you want to work on, Sonia?

This is obviously after my mom's cancer and everything. And I was like, I don't think I have any issues. I'm fine, I'm just curious to learn this. And everyone looked at me like, wow, is she in denial or what? And I caught that stare. I was like, what? I am fine. And I sat on that chair. I thought of something and we worked on it. It has been 10 years from that. I have been working on myself nonstop, nonstop. And many of those memories, which became my corrupted file,

comes from the caregiver experience. But we have, again, the coping mechanism to just brush it under the carpet. I have to be strong for her. I have to be present for her. And what about me? Well, I will take care of myself. So caregiver burnout is real. Caregiver stress anxiety is very real. And once again, I'm so glad that you're bringing it up. Because in India,

we opened the doors for caregivers as well. We actually tried to convince them, come with the survivor because you need equal care. You know how we say on the airplane, put the mask first on your face and then on the next person and they happily agreed and they worked on themselves and they found so many things like how I said, we are in denial. And when you sense and when you close those things, your energy levels improve.

Your sleep quality improves. Your joy to live life improves. Everything goes to the next level. And that is what they realized just in four days. Oh, wow, what was I missing on? So we are opening up this project for caregivers as well. Because this experience in India was very heartwarming to see both the sides equally healing together. And moving forward, we are doing another run in October.

SONIA (20:07.393)
And this is what I was discussing with my team. We have to open it for caregivers.

Patient From Hell (20:12.654)
Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for sharing your story and thank you for talking about this. I believe it will help a lot of people.

SONIA (20:20.237)
Thank you. Thank you for having me here and giving me this opportunity, Samira.