Psychosomatic Medicine 20:321-327 (1958)
© 1958 American Psychosomatic Society

Effect of Hypnosis on Intraocular Pressure in Normal and Glaucomatous Subjects

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, and the Department of Surgery, Section of Ophthalmology, Grace-New Haven Community Hospital, New Haven, Conn.

An attempt was made to study the effect of hypnosis on intraocular tension in normal and glaucomatous subjects. Measurements were made with a recently standardized electronic tonometer (Mueller). Seven patients with chronic primary glaucoma, ranging in age from 52 to 67, and 4 young, healthy, normal subjects were studied. Four of the glaucomatous patients were hypnotizable to the point of amnesia in one session, while 3 were not hypnotizable under these conditions. All the normal subjects were highly hypnotizable. The study provided data on the effect on intraocular tension of: (1) hypnosis per se; (2) waking and hypnotic suggestion of symptom relief; (3) posthypnotic suggestion of symptom relief; (4) a hypnotically suggested anxiety situation.

The single, most impressive finding was that on direct waking suggestion of symptom relief, all glaucomatous patients showed a drop in the pressure of one or both eyes to a level as low as (1 case) or lower than (6 cases) the lowest recorded tension during the previous 12 months that they had been followed in the eye clinic. (One subject had been followed for only 3 months.) Posthypnotic suggestion of symptom relief resulted in subjective improvement only in several of the patients. These patients volunteered such improvement as having fewer headaches; less tearing, feeling generally more relaxed, and sleeping better.

These findings serve to emphasize the significant role of the emotions in glaucoma, although the mechanisms involved remain obscure.