In the last article we looked specifically at inducing analgesia. Today, in the last of this pain control series, I’m going to take you through some of the more general processes for dealing with pain in various circumstances. Indeed, although hypnosis for analgesia is often seen as the “exciting” part of pain control, what we’re looking at today are situations you’re likely to come across more often.

Hypnosis is frequently used to help people whose anxiety makes it almost impossible for them to bear the anesthetist’s needle for example, and many people with chronic pain will gain great relief from hypnotic pain management.

Preparing a nervous patient for surgery, dental work or injections

Some people dread the thought of dental work or surgery so deeply that they work themselves up into such a state that even a light touch will be translated by their brain into agony. This can be hugely frustrating for the medics dealing with these patients, and they must be tempted to treat the patient as though they’re making a ridiculous fuss over nothing (which of course they are in a way!). But of course the tension brought on by such a level of anxiety causes the muscles in the body to tense up and tighten to such an extent that, for example, the insertion of a needle genuinely is much more painful than in a relaxed patient.

As clinical hypnotists we can help this kind of client a great deal. The relationship between hypnotist and client is really important in this situation. Because the problem is mainly anxiety based, the client must feel comfortable with the hypnotist, and must develop a degree of trust. Ideally they will be taught self-hypnosis in a session or two before undergoing whatever procedure is planned. This also means they can use the techniques whenever they need to, without a hypnotist having to be present.

The key for these clients is to induce deep relaxation. They can be taught fairly rapid, progressive relaxation to carry out for themselves. They can also be given an anchoring signal to use to induce such relaxation almost immediately just by touching their fingers together, or whatever signal they choose to adopt for this purpose. They can be taken in hypnosis through whatever procedures they’re expecting to undergo. Use strong, visualization techniques to make the procedure as real as possible, while constantly reassuring and reminding them that while the procedure is being carried out, they feel safe and relaxed, knowing everything is fine. They can be taken in visualization to a beautiful, peaceful place, where they are so relaxed that whatever their body is experiencing just doesn’t seem important.

Whether or not hypnotic analgesia is then induced for the procedure itself, in patients like this the level of relaxation will make the whole procedure much more pleasant and trouble free. They will be able to deal with receiving injected anesthesia will little trouble, and will almost certainly be more co-operative throughout the procedure. Very often, once they have experienced a procedure in such a relaxed state, their fear will simply disappear from that point on, and future procedures will be easily dealt with by them.

Relieving chronic and general pain

Whether it’s just a passing headache, or the unrelenting chronic pain that accompanies certain conditions, the techniques outlined here can help. In the case of chronic pain, teaching self hypnosis is invaluable. This way the client can manage their own pain much of the time. You might also record a pain management session so that they can listen to you whenever they need to, at home or in hospital.

Substitution: a useful tool is substituting a painful sensation with something less painful. So for example if the client describes the pain as sharp, you might suggest that:

As you relax more, you will notice that the sharp, stabbing feeling of the pain changes subtly. In a strange way it becomes softer… fading more and more into the background… until it feels more like a dull, warm buzzing.

Similarly a raw pain can be translated into a tingling or a mild itch.

Dissociation: the client can learn to remove him or herself from the pain. They learn to step out of themselves, so that they’re outside of their own body, and therefore not experiencing the pain because it’s not happening to “them”. Or they can remove themselves completely, taking themselves in their imagination off to a different place altogether, leaving their body, and therefore their pain, far behind. This is a very effective technique, and useful as long as the client can take some time to be still and quiet.

Displacement: using clear suggestion, and having agreed with an alternative location for the pain beforehand, it can be hypnotically “moved” from where it is currently being experienced and shifted to an area where it’s more manageable, or even outside of the body altogether.

The dimmer switch: in hypnosis, explain to the client that the pain receptor area of the brain is a bit like a light bulb in an electrical circuit. The stronger the pain, the brighter the light glows. But they can take control of that receptor area. It’s done its job, by flagging up that there’s a problem. The client is dealing with the problem, and getting the medical treatment they need, so they can “turn down” that warning light in their brain when the interpretation of the pain is too high. Ask them to imagine the receptor area as a small room, with the light in the center, burning brightly if the pain is strong. On the wall they will see a dimmer switch, and as they slowly turn down the switch, they will see the light gradually becoming dimmer, and as the light dims, they will notice the pain becoming duller, less intense, gentler and more manageable, until it is just a dull, soft sensation in the background, allowing them to get on with the things they want to do.

Take your time with these techniques. Lots of gentle, repeated suggestion will be most effective, and importantly, teach your clients how to use these techniques for themselves. There are few situations that you’ll come across as a hypnotist that are more rewarding than seeing the relief on the faces of clients who have been dealing with pain on a long term basis and have finally found a way of being virtually pain free at times.

Controlling Pain With Hypnosis Part 3 Conclusion

Well, I hope you enjoyed this series on Controlling Pain with Hypnosis as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you missed the first two articles in the series you can find them below:

Controlling Pain with Hypnosis – Part 1

Controlling Pain with Hypnosis – Part 2

Stay tuned as I have something really special planned in the next few days to help you take your hypnosis practice to the next level. All I can say is that I have special guest planned that many of you have been asking me to have back. So check back in the next day or so to see who I’m talking about and to learn how to take your hypnosis practice to the next level!

In this new series of articles I’m going to be talking about Controlling Pain with Hypnosis. I want to give everyone an in-depth view at one of the more interesting fields of hypnosis in my opinion. So check out part 1 below and in a few days I’ll post part 2.

What an amazing concept – that surgery can be carried out under hypnosis, using no chemical anesthetic at all. It’s definitely been done. Breasts have been surgically removed and limbs amputated painlessly; impacted wisdom teeth have been taken out with little difficulty and no drugs. It’s exciting and slightly unbelievable, isn’t it? What’s more, although it might be more time consuming than using chemical anesthetics, there are very definite advantages to using hypnosis for pain control.

Benefits of Hypnosis For Pain Control

For one thing, there are no toxic effects, unlike virtually every drug-based form of anesthetic. The shock to the system is much less. The patient’s protective systems stay functioning throughout the procedure, so if they need a drink of water they can safely have one. If they vomit or need to swallow or spit out blood they can go right ahead. When they’re in recovery they’ll notice if things are too hot, too cold, twisted or uncomfortable. Any pain and discomfort after the operation can be easily relieved, and general recovery is likely to be swifter. So if the advantages are so obvious, and clinically proven, why the heck are we still using chemical anesthetics and inducing complete unconsciousness for 99% of all operations?

Unfortunately it seems that less than one in every five of us is capable of reaching the depth of analgesia in hypnosis required for painless major surgery. So this phenomenon, while a fascinating medical curiosity, remains just that, and it’s not looked on as a real alternative to more orthodox anesthesia.

While that might be frustrating, hypnosis does still have a major role to play in general pain control and pain management, and this is where most clinical hypnotists come in. We may not be able to produce complete anesthesia (the loss of all sensory perception) except in very rare subjects, but we can certainly help nearly all patients experience various levels of analgesia (the loss of the perception of pain). We‘re often asked to help with anxiety about pain, like people who are terrified of dental procedures, injections, or upcoming surgery. We’re also often approached about the management of pain, perhaps post operatively, or in relation to chronic pain or long term illness.

I need to stick in a health warning here. Obviously it can be a great relief to clients to find their pain massively reduced or gone. However pain, while unpleasant, is a very effective safety mechanism, alerting us to move away from dangerous and potentially damaging objects and situations, or telling us that there’s something wrong that we need to deal with. It’s this latter situation that we need to be careful about. Removing the perception of pain which has not been diagnosed and may be an important indicator of a serious medical condition could be extremely dangerous. However, predictable or chronic pain, assuming we know the underlying reason for it and the client is receiving the appropriate treatment,can be safely reduced or dismissed altogether, with only positive results.

The Hidden Observer

An interesting phenomenon which is still debated is the existence of what has been called “the hidden observer”. This is not only related to pain control in hypnosis, but is particularly relevant in this situation. The term “hidden observer” was coined by Ernest Hilgard, an American professor at Stanford University who spent many years researching hypnosis and was particularly interested in the area of pain control.

While demonstrating hypnotic “deafness” to a class of students, Hilgard was asked whether perhaps the now “deaf” student, could perhaps hear at a deeper, unconscious level, even though he demonstrated no awareness of the sounds around him. Hilgard decided to test this theory by using an ideo-motor response which indicated that indeed the student had been able to hear everything that was going on. Under hypnosis he was able to recount every sound made and word spoken, even though he had shown no reaction to sound at the time – even very loud, sudden noises that had been made right next to his ear.

This raised the question as to whether a subject hypnotized to feel no pain, was still aware of pain at some level. A series of sophisticated experiments followed, and demonstrated through automatic talking, writing and ideo-motor responses, that in fact pain was reported at normal levels, even though the subject experienced little or no pain consciously.

Hilgard and his wife came up with the concept of a “hidden observer” – a part of the mind which is always aware of the pain being experienced by the hypnotized person even when the person reports no conscious pain at all. The pain is still present, but hypnosis appears to circumvent the interpretation of that pain. It seems that the pain is experienced as somehow disassociated from the subject, or irrelevant and unimportant.

The theory of the hidden observe lends itself to many hypnotic situations where the subject is often aware at a deep level of everything that is happening, yet can only recall the details when taken back into a deep hypnotic trance.

Controlling Pain with Hypnosis Part 1 Conclusion

The whole subject of hypnosis for pain control is a fascinating area, which is still not entirely understood. Maybe one day we’ll discover enough about it to really be able to offer it as a genuine alternative to drugs for the vast majority of people. It’s a huge area of study, but hopefully I’ve given you a useful background summary here. In part 2 of Controlling Pain with Hypnosis I’ll outline some of the techniques that can be used for hypnotic pain control. If you found this article interesting you should love the next one!

Descartes has a lot to answer for. His idea that the mind is somehow separate from the body has proved remarkably persistent. This way of thinking sees human beings as something like a Star Wars AT-AS Walker carrying around a magic ghost – a two-legged machine driven by a disconnected intelligence.

As beliefs go, it’s limiting, to say the least, and increasingly discredited. These days we understand a little bit more about the role of neurotransmitters and the constant flow of information around our bodies. In many ways, it seems that consciousness is something that’s distributed throughout the entire body, right down to cellular level.

Hypnotherapists have long had an intuitive understanding of this. We often use hypnosis to talk to the unconscious mind, with a view to producing changes in the body. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is in the realm of pain control.

The late Kay Thompson was a student of Milton Erickson, and a brilliantly gifted pioneer in the use of hypnosis for pain control. Her view of pain was that it’s a warning signal, and nothing else. When everything’s been done that can be done – when the warning’s been heeded, in other words – there’s no further need for the signal.

This is quite a radical reframe. Under the old Descartes model, chronic pain is a maddening conundrum. Many in the medical profession will have encountered people suffering from chronic pain for no apparent reason. In the Thompson model, chronic pain is simply obsolete. It’s like somebody keeping their thumb on your doorbell after you’ve opened the door to let them in.

It also brings pain into the realm of communication, which is what hypnotherapy is all about. As a practising therapist, I’m fascinated by the idea of “pain as communication”. You need to be alert for the language and the message.

The first thing to listen out for is the client’s own understanding of their pain. People can be very eloquent, even poetic, in their description of it.

“Scratchy, and dry.”
“Black and cold – very cold, and heavy too.”
“Like animal claws.”
“A sort of red sensation.”

These are just some of the things I’ve heard from clients, and I’m sure other therapists have heard similar things. Vivid, sensory metaphors like these are gifts for hypnotic work, of course, since they can be transformed. Scratchy and dry can be changed to smooth and lush. Red sensations can become calming green sensations and so on.

Pain can also be symbolic, and surprisingly literal. A colleague of mine treated a patient for lower back pain, who felt unsupported in their work. The therapist Pat Williams talks about working with a woman with a frozen shoulder, whose problems started when her parents went through some marital difficulties and had less time for their daughter – she’d literally been given the cold shoulder!

This fits in with the idea of consciousness being distributed throughout the body. We can begin to understand chronic pain as the body’s way of trying to tell us something, which is often emotional.

A recent experiment at Bangor University in the UK, brought these strands together and suggests a useful technique for pain control. In the experiment, forty-two rheumatoid arthritis sufferers were asked to visualise their pain in the form of a person, before thanking that person for letting them know something was wrong. They then politely but firmly asked that person to leave, visualising them walking off into the distance and eventually out of sight. The participants reported that this technique brought significant pain relief.

All of this offers us a more useful and effective way of helping people with chronic pain. Instead of subjecting them to endless and increasingly futile tests, or continually upping their dosage of painkillers, we need to ask – what is this pain trying to say, and how is trying to say it? Like so much else in life, it comes down to really listening.

About The Author

Ian Sherred is a freelance writer and a professional hypnotherapist. He is a partner in Tadpole Hypnotherapy, a Southampton, UK based hypnotherapy practice specializing in emotional and physical wellbeing. He believes that the more practical the therapy, the more successful it is!

www.tadpolehypnotherapy.com
www.totalstresscontrol.co.uk

I received a great e-mail from my good friend Rich Wilson who is also a really great certified Hypnotist. The e-mail contained a link to a great article dealing with how hypnosis can be used for tooth removal and other things involved with seeing the Dentist.

Hypnotists have known for a long time that hypnosis can be used to deal with pain. Hypnosis allows the body to produce it’s own Anesthesia. Hypnosis can offer help in many different areas such as controlling the amount of saliva, blood flow, pain control and general relaxation which helps to ease the visit to the dentist.

Articles like the one I’m planning to link to here are great because they get the word out about the different benefits of hypnosis. I highly recommend that people still consult with their Dentist on this matter.

While hypnosis does work well for this field its always good to still consult with your Dentist. I also recommend that if your Dentist and you agree to this type of procedure that you seek out a trained and knowledgeable hypnotist who has some experience in this field.

This may hurt a little: Hypnotized patient has two teeth removed without anesthetic