Dr. Lang featured in Washington Post

This past November, Dr. Lang was featured in Debra Bruno’s Washington Post article tiled, “Hypnotherapy isn’t magic, but it helps some patients cope with surgery and recovery.” Below find and exerpt of the piece, click here for the full article.

Debbie Phillips, 63, an entrepreneur based on Martha’s Vineyard, turned to hypnosis 10 years ago when she needed a biopsy done on a growth on her thyroid. She did a few preparatory sessions with Elvira Lang, at the time chief of interventional radiology at Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center. Lang then accompanied Phillips to her needle biopsy, helping Phillips imagine a placid beach scene as a long needle was inserted into her neck with no local anesthetic. It wasn’t completely painless, Phillips said, but Lang would sense that “and take me deeper.”

Lang, who calls her method “non-pharmaceutical patient sedation, or “comfort talk,” says she developed her system over the past 25 years as a radiologist working with patients who needed “minimally invasive” procedures that didn’t involve cutting but that used X-rays to guide doctors to open up blocked arteries or treat gallstones.

“The patients are awake, and they look at you with their big, fearful eyes,” she says. She realized that drugs go only so far, but if someone is unconscious, they can’t cooperate with the procedure.AD

When Phillips’s biopsy showed she had thyroid cancer and would need surgery, Phillips continued to use hypnosis for anxiety. This time, Lang did her hypnosis by phone. Phillips says she was so relaxed she said to her husband, “I’m having major surgery, and I’m totally cool about it.” Her husband responded, “You are technically under hypnosis.”

Although she needed general anesthesia for this procedure, she said she was so relaxed she refused any presurgical anxiety medication.