Pain Management Hypnosis

Hypnotherapy can help reduce the feeling of many different types of pain.

There are many ways of coping with pain. Active coping strategies are those that involve the patient taking responsibility for pain management, and efforts of returning to or maintain functioning in spite of the pain. Active coping can include participating in physical therapy or other exercise plan, relaxation for reducing mental strain, and distracting one's attention from pain.

Participating in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and learning and using Self-Hypnosis are both active strategies for managing pain. Passive Coping strategies involve giving responsibility for pain management to an outside source or allowing other areas of life to be adversely affected by one's pain.

Some examples of this are reducing or cancelling social activites, focusing on the pain and the suffering, and engaging in negative self-talk such as "This pain is unbearable.", "I can't get comfortable", and "I wish my doctor would prescribe better pain medication for me." Very often pain patients will use both types of strategies, depending on day-to-day circumstances, and their over-all level of adjustment to their health challenges.

The decade of the 90's produced volumes of research on pain. Hypnosis, Biofeedback, Relaxation and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy were studied and compared for efficacy in treating chronic back pain, arthritis pain, headache, jaw pain, cancer pain, and pain associated with medical procedures for cancer treatment. Utilizing these techniques are active ways of coping with pain.

The thoughts that we think, and the emotions we feel impact our physical body just as conditions of our physical body impact out thoughts and emotions. This seems like it should be obvious, but what is not so obvious is the chemical changes that occur in the body that make this connection happen.

Authors Herbert Benson, MD, Andrew Weil, MD and also Deepak Chopra, MD have written volumes about the mind-body connection, integrative medicine and behavioral health. Mind-body medicine integrates modern scientific medicine, psychology, nursing, nutrition, exercise physiology and belief to enhance the innate healing capacities of body and mind.

Studies have shown that between 60% and 90% of all physician visits are for stress-related complaints. Through more than thirty years of research and clinical practice, Herbert Benson, MD and his colleagues have proven the efficacy of mind-body medicine in the treatment of these complaints to the extent that they are caused by or made worse by stress. Mind-body medicine strategies have helped millions of people reduce the stress that can cause or aggravate conditions. Clinical findings that support the use of mind-body approaches include:

Chronic pain patients reduce their physician visits by 36%. The Clinical Journal of Pain, Volume 2, pages 305-310, 1991

There is approximately a 50% reduction in visits to a HMO after a relaxation-response based intervention that resulted in estimated significant cost savings. Behavioral Medicine, Volume 16, pages 165-173, 1990

Open-heart surgery patients have fewer post-operative complications. Behavioral Medicine, Volume 5, pages 111-117, 1989

One hundred percent of insomnia patients reported improved sleep and 91% either eliminated or reduced sleeping medication use.

Women with severe PMT have a 57% reduction in physical and psychological symptoms. Obstetrics and Gynecology, Volume 75, pages 649-655, April, 1990

These mind-body approaches work because they go beyond the physical to address the patterns, attitudes and behaviors that surround health. They deal with the cycle of stress, anxiety, tension, symptoms, and disease. Through hypnotherapy individuals can be taught to break imbedded harmful beliefs, develop positive attitudes, and to implement new strategies for healthy behaviors.