The future of hypnotherapy?

Researchers have found a bacterium that might alter the future of hypnotherapy. The bacterium lives in your gut and appears to have a strong connection with depression. Last month a different set of researchers discovered a collection of gut bacteria which only appear in people with schizophrenia.

This suggests that these debilitating mental illnesses are not actually genetic, but may be the result of an infection. Or, on the other hand, it may be that you get these illnesses when you don't have the benefits of the byproducts of various gut organisms.

Growing a cure for mental illness

It has been known for a long time that a healthy gut bacteria has many, many benefits for your health. One of the reasons for the immense popularity of yoghurt is precisely because it puts probiotic bacteria back into an unbalanced gut. Alcohol is a byproduct of yeast growth. There are tens of thousands of species of yeasts and bacteria in your gut right now. Some unknown number of these bacteria also produce byproducts. Some of these are highly beneficial, some of these may in fact be dangerous.

But there are so many different species that scientists have not yet been able to track down exactly what they are and exactly what, if anything, they do for you. The presence or absence of certain bacteria have been implicated in things like Crohn's disease and many other digestive problems. In fact faecal transplants are becoming the best way to treat diseases like this.

The future of hypnotherapy?

Schizophrenia, and depression are easily diagnosed illnesses. It appears that they may have a connection to gut bacteria, or may in fact be caused by gut bacteria. You have to wonder how many other less dramatic illnesses are also caused by gut bacteria.

Maybe in future we hypnotherapists will become largely redundant. We may be replaced by multi-spectrum probiotic injections. Perhaps the future treatment of mental illness may involved a simple transplant of some beneficial balance of gut flora and fauna. Who knows?