Many patients with UC need to take the immunosuppressive, azathioprine, in addition to a 5ASA, to keep their disease in remission. While azathioprine is usually effective in maintaining remission of UC, it does require regular drug checks and carries the risk of possible side-effects. We now plan to undertake a study of hypnotherapy to see whether it can prevent relapse of UC in patients who normally need to take azathioprine to keep their UC inactive. To do this, we shall ask 66 patients who agree to participate in the trial to stop their azathioprine. They will then be allocated to receive either gut-focussed hypnotherapy (44 patients) or, as a control, non-emotive educational sessions (22 patients) once a month for 3 months, with intervening self-hypnosis daily in the active arm. We shall then record relapse rates in each group after 6 months and at 1 year. We shall diagnose relapse from patients' diaries recording the Simple Clinical Activity Index, and by Baron score >1 at sigmoidoscopy. We shall also measure routine blood tests (including CRP), serum IL6 and IL13 concentrations, as well as rectal mucosal release of substance P, tumour necrosis factor (TNFα), IL13 and histamine at 0, 1 month and 1 year to assess how hypnotherapy might reduce mucosal inflammation.