The David Waxman Lecture: Hypnosis and Cancer: Quo Vadis?

Until 2009 when he retired from the NHS and the University of Hull, he held the Foundation Chair of Cancer Rehabilitation and was the Clinical Lead for the Division of Cancer in the Postgraduate Medical Institute. He was also Director of the Oncology Health Service, and a founding member of the Faculty of the Hull York Medical School (HYMS). 

Since the 1970s, he has used hypnosis to treat a range of clinical problems, and he has carried out five randomised clinical trials to evaluate the effects of hypnotherapy, primarily in cancer-related distress.  He is a former Member of the Council of the British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis and, in 2015, was made an Honorary Life Member of the British Association for Clinical and Academic Hypnosis.   

Research interests include the psychoneuroimmunology of breast, brain, lung, and colorectal cancers; psychosocial aspects of cancer screening; psychosocial interventions to prevent psychological distress and psychiatric morbidity in people with cancer, and Li Fraumeni syndrome. 

Professor Walker has given numerous Invited Lectures and Keynote Addresses throughout the world, and he has over 300 publications to his name.  He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and a former Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, and the Society of Biology.   

For further information on Professor Walker please visit www.lgwalker.com. 

Dr Mayur Bodani first became interested in hypnosis whilst working as a Specialist Registrar (SpR) at St Thomas’ Hospital, London with Professor Michael Kopelman, Professor of Neuropsychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, using benzodiazepines to abreact patients with psychogenic dissociative amnesias. As an SpR at Queen Square (National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery), whilst concurrently completing the University College London diploma in hypnosis applied to medicine, under Professor David Oakley, he demonstrated the technique to powerful effect in fully recovering patients with severe functional neurological disorders admitted to the Hughlings Jackson ward at Queen Square. He was trained in hypnosis by the late great Dr Tom Kraft, the father of the present President of the Hypnosis Section, Dr David Kraft. Dr Bodani set up and ran the NHS Neuropsychiatry Service in Kent from 2006. He is the past Vice-Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s Faculty of Neuropsychiatry.

Dr Derek Tracy is the Medical Director of West London NHS Trust. He was previously the Clinical Director of a nationally innovative integrated directorate of adult social care, mental and physical health services in South East London.

His clinical work has generally been in crisis care; his team produced some of the first qualitative and patient-centred research on Home Treatment Teams and designed and ran an award-winning digitised patient reported outcome measurement (PROM) programme that has been profiled by NHS England.

Derek is a Senior Lecturer at King’s College London and University College London. He has published over one hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers and fifteen book chapters. His research interests include New Psychoactive Substances (‘legal highs’) and Derek is a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs that advises the Home Office on drug harms.

At the Royal College of Psychiatrists Derek is an elected member of the executives of the academic, evolutionary psychiatry, and occupational health faculties. With regards to the last of these, he has a particular interest in NHS staff well-being; in 2020 he was co-opted as one of the medical leads to design and run the mental health team at the London Nightingale hospital, providing on-site support to ITU staff during the pandemic.

He is the editor for public engagement at the British Journal of Psychiatry, writing its Kaleidoscope and Highlights columns, and running its social media output and trainee-engagement programme.

Derek is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, the Royal Society of Arts, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists; he was a Founding Fellow of the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management.

In 2015 he was awarded the Institute of Psychiatry’s Teaching Excellence Award, and in 2019 the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s “Communicator of the Year” award.