Pain Relief Through Hypnotherapy And Hypnosis

Hypnotherapy can help pain management and pain relief

Pain is unavoidable, be it back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain or knee pain. Everybody experiences pain at some point in their life through physical injury or disease. The pain may have come on recently (acute pain) or it may have been present for a longer period of time (chronic pain). Hypnotherapy is a recommended treatment for people suffering with chronic or acute pain.

Hypnosis has proved to be beneficial to managing the pain associated with cancer, skin burns, tension headaches, backache, arthritis and irritable bowel syndrome. In fact, recent research has discovered that breast cancer patients undergoing surgery need less anaesthetic when hypnosis is used to relax them before the operation. Acute pain can also be treated with hypnotherapy and has helped people going through a dental procedure or childbirth.

Pain can increase stress levels, cause hormonal imbalance and affect metabolism. Pain delays the healing process and reduces the immune system’s ability to help overcome illness. Pain also affects appetite, disturbs sleep and can lead to low self-esteem or depression. Hypnosis provides a natural anaesthetic to pain through the power of suggestion and aids positive physical and emotional responses to help patients regain a balanced state of mind and body.

Helping pain relief with hypnosis

Pain is the body’s warning signal that something is wrong. For a hypnotherapist to help treat pain they must first understand and recognise the root cause of the pain itself. Therefore, diagnosis of the pain should be undertaken by a healthcare professional to discover its cause. A headache for example may be caused by a serious condition such as a tumour on the brain so by only treating the headache, the hypnotherapist may never be aware of the underlying problem.

Once the root cause of the pain has been identified, hypnosis can provide an effective way to relieve it. Pain is amplified in the brain of someone who is in pain already. This is because the mind has tuned into the fact that pain is present (or anticipated) and therefore expects it. The sensory system is heightened to expect the pain and so pain sensations are felt more strongly. Anxieties about illness also amplify the pain sensation. Hypnotherapy reprograms the brain to anticipate and respond to pain in a different way and helps to ease anxieties about it.

Pain management and pain relief with hypnotherapy

A trained hypnotherapist helps their patient induce a hypnotic trance, sending them into a deep relaxation. In this state of mind, the subconscious part of the brain is open to positive suggestions that can retrain the way the mind thinks about pain. Modifying the experience of pain can reduce its effects and alleviate suffering. Hypnotherapy also uses imagery to help view and deal with pain in a different way. A common imagery technique is to view pain as a volume control on a radio. By visualising the control, the patient can reach out and turn the volume down and in turn, the pain is turned down too.

Hypnosis reduces the dependency on medications for pain relief and the side-effects that come from taken them too often (constipation, mood swings etc). A visit to a trained hypnotherapist can also teach the patient self-hypnosis techniques so they can alleviate pain in the comfort of their own home and reduce the time spent on medical visits. Hypnotherapy for pain management allows the patient to take control of their pain in a positive way.

Article Submitted By
Daniel Alexander, GoToSee Journalist

Date Published
09/05/08

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