Chronic and acute pain can be so debilitating. This article looks at the psychological element of pain and suggests Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help ease pain. Our attitudes, fears, and other emotional responses to pain can all greatly affect the way we actually experience it.
Hypnosis can be even more powerful.
After the summer on the Uncommon Knowledge Hypnotherapy diploma we will be focusing on using hypnosis to ease physical pain. A local chap recently underwent an eighty minute operation using only self hypnosis as anesthetic: No anesthetic please - just hypnosis!
The great late Milton Erickson was a master of understanding that, whilst the experience of pain is very real, it is also an experience which is mutable.
After reading the Psychology Today piece, I have to share this: before hypnosis became a regular fixture in my life a year ago, I was taking OTC painkillers almost daily for a weak back worsened by three separate car accidents. Now, I take some measure of pride in the fact that I haven’t had a single analgesic medication (for any reason) in 11 months or so - the near-constant backache is gone, and I have different strategies for dealing with other pangs.
(I should probably also mention that increased exercise has strengthened those muscles…) Even my mother, who was taking 800mg-doses of ibuprofen at least daily, has been able to cut back on it with her use of the downloads.
In today’s ever increasing socioeconomic stressful environment emphasis should be focused on the advantages of Medical hypnosis. It is important to understand that one is not treated with hypnosis but rather through hypnosis. Choosing the right Hypnotherapist is therefore very important. One-on-one sessions are most desirable in correcting conditioned habitual responses, as each patient has different and sometime multiple past and present sensitizing events.
Unlike cognitive therapy or prescription medications which concentrate on the “effects”, Medical hypnosis works in an older part of our brain to assault the “causality” of the problem by redirecting or even eliminating negative habits, emotions, or perceptions. As increased scientific study confirms the value of medical hypnosis; myths, half-truths, and suspicions surrounding hypnotherapy will be diminished and we can help change our stressful society without harsh and often dangerous prescription medications.