This is an ABC podcast. You know, when people first started talking about it, however many years ago,

I thought, I'm probably never going to suggest that to patients. That sounds a little bit, you know,

left of field, not very medical and not very scientific, but absolutely I eat my words,

and now I suggest it all the time.

Hypnotherapy and irritable bowel syndrome. Those are two things you probably didn't expect to hear in the same sentence.

But if you've ever felt nervous butterflies in your stomach, or suddenly needed to run to the loo for a number two before a big presentation, you know the brain and gut are

connected. In the past decade, the research into this connection has exploded and transformed

our understanding of anxiety, depression, Parkinson's disease, and more. So how might treatment

targeting the mind help with irritable bowel syndrome?

In this episode of All in the Mind, producer Danny Stewart investigates the gut-brain-connection

and what hypnotherapy can offer people living with IBS. To begin, I'd like you to create a picture

in your mind of you standing in a pharmacy.

A very old pharmacy where medicines are stored in little glass bottles and jars with old-fashioned cork stoppers.

All bottles are odd sizes and shapes and each is labelled with a handwritten tag so there can be no confusion as to what's inside.

What you're hearing is a script used in clinical gut-directed hypnotherapy.

You are fascinated by all of these bottles and you notice that there appears to be one very small bottle with your name on it.

It's a specialised hypnosis treatment for irritable bowel syndrome or IBS.

You notice that the glass feels cold in your hand and you decide to take a sip of the medicine inside.

You only need to take a very small sip of this medicine,

and almost instantaneously,

you feel something positive and healthy and powerful is happening inside you.

You can feel the medicine travelling down your throat.

...