- Hypnosis for Pain Relief
Olga was angry as she described her pain condition to me through her interpreter. Her lips were tight and her expression was bitter. She was angry with doctors who had failed her, with her employers who seemed not to care, and even with me for asking a lot of silly questions about pain. Despite this unpromising start she agreed to follow my instructions. Within a few minutes she was a different person, animatedly making jokes with the interpreter, and waving her injured arm around in a way that had been impossible just a few minutes before.
The technique that I used was "deep relaxation" or hypnosis. Psychologists do use other strategies to help people with pain, providing support, training people to think differently about their pain, and changing behavior through a process called behavior modification to help them get back to normal again. But though these strategies may help people to live with ongoing pain, and may be crucial to rehabilitation, they do not have as the goal the elimination of pain itself. Hypnosis can provide this extra benefit.
Incidentally, this doesn’t mean that people have to come face to face with a hypnotherapist. They can listen to audio recordings and even learn the recorded scripts so well that they speak them (in their minds) to themselves. After some practice many people get to the stage where they simply get into a comfortable position, close their eyes, and almost immediately get into their self-hypnotic state by choosing a familiar word or phrase or mental image.
No other psychological treatment is as powerful in creating comfort out of discomfort with none of the adverse side effects associated with medical treatments of comparable efficacy. Olga found that she could repeatedly eliminate pain for about five hours at a time using self hypnosis, though the best that analgesics could do for her was about two hours. Furthermore her tablets (containing Codeine Phosphate) caused dizziness, and upset her stomach.
However, using hypnosis effectively in the management of a chronic pain condition, requires more than a simple hypnotic induction followed by suggestions for pain control. Many people turn to hypnosis expecting that it will be a magic treatment for chronic pain, just as many regard it as a sole treatment to cure compulsive problems, sexual problems, or anxiety. Things don’t work quite like this. To be most effective for such complex problems hypnosis must be carefully incorporated into a broader psychotherapeutic intervention. Then it can be very powerful indeed.
Some people think that hypnosis is effective in treating pain only because it is associated with muscular relaxation. In fact simple muscular relaxation has limited effects on pain relief. Hypnosis (or deep relaxation), is much more powerful with pain, and its effects can occur without any physical relaxation at all. This happens through a dramatic shift in consciousness and is characterised by an increased receptivity to suggestion, the capacity for alteration of perception and memory, and the capacity for direct control of a number of usually involuntary physiological functions (e.g. glandular activity, blood circulation etc).
All of this sounds pretty profound and of course it is. However, almost anyone can learn to get into self-hypnosis with a couple of hours practice every week for 2 or 3 weeks. The important thing is to hear the right kind of guidance to begin with, either with a live therapist or an audio script that is designed for their level of experience. There are a few people for whom hypnosis might not be advisable, for instance, people who might ignore pain signals from their bodies that need medical attention, or those who may lose money (legal cases) if they experience pain reduction and those people who are unwilling to take the responsibility to initiate and persist with their own treatment.
Despite these comments, it remains true that the number of people for whom hypnosis is being recognised as a useful method of pain control is constantly expanding. Hypnosis is now routinely used as a part of the psychotherapeutic process with cancer patients. Hypnosis may help with pain from the cancer itself or with problems such as burns (from radiation) or nausea (from chemotherapy). Substantial research with quite large groups of patients indicates that hypnosis can reduce the frequency and duration of pain, and dramatically reduce the "suffering" component in cancer patients. It seems that hypnosis techniques can be useful for as many as two thirds of cancer patients with pain, and that, as in other cases of pain, they can help reduce dependence on medication, and give patients a greater sense of mastery over their illness.
More readings will be added to my blog from time to time. Have a quick look now to see the first posting on my blog PSYC1PLUS