Marie Element DipCH MAHA (Fellow) HCA, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Counsellor and EFT Practitioner.
“The empirical support for hypnosis for chronic pain management has flourished over the past two decades. Clinical trials show that hypnosis is effective for reducing chronic pain, although outcomes vary between individuals. The findings from these clinical trials also show that hypnotic treatments have a number of positive effects beyond pain control. Neurophysiological studies reveal…
Pain that persists for longer than 6 months is referred to as chronic pain (Keefe, 1982). Unrelieved chronic pain can cause considerable suffering, physical limitations, and emotional distress (Turk, 1996). Further, chronic pain is one of the most common reasons for seeking medical care but often persists despite treatment with analgesics and physical modalities. For…
Breast cancer surgery is associated with side effects, including postsurgical pain, nausea, and fatigue. In this study, a randomized clinical trial involving 200 patients undergoing breast surgery tested the hypotheses that a brief presurgery hypnosis intervention would decrease intraoperative anesthesia and analgesic use and side effects associated with breast cancer surgery and that it would…
The US Institute for the Study of Healthcare Organizations & Transactions has a study on the effectiveness of Hypnosis in Pain Management. As you can see from their graph, Hypnosis achieved a higher level of pain reduction than Acupuncture, Morphine or the Placebo. Hypnosis not only helps to relieve pain but it helps to preserve the…
This study*, published the medical journal Lancet in 2000, explored how hypnosis used in preparation for surgery might affect outcomes, in particular subsequent pain and anxiety levels. As you can see from the graphs, the results were dramatic to say the least. Where hypnosis was used, patients were far less anxious and experienced far less…
Within the realm of medicine, the method of hypnoanalgesia can be adapted for various situations. In most cases, the intervention consists of four main stages (Chaves, 1994). The first stage involves preparation of the patient. As can be expected, most patients come into hypnosis with various expectations. In order to obtain the maximum gain, the…
Hypnosis can be used for all patients for pain relief including, in some instances, as a form of analgesia for surgery, a Perth conference of anaesthetists and pain specialists was told in 2012. New Zealand psychiatrist and pain medicine specialist, Dr Bob Large, from the Auckland Regional Pain Service said about 10 to 15 per…