Hypnosis for Pain Control and Anaesthesia

Hypnosis for Pain Control and Anaesthesia
by James Middleton – Thursday, 20 May 2010, 02:02 AM

What is the difference between hypnotic anaesthesia and hypnotic analgesia?

When a patient has psychosomatic pain do they experience real physical pain or hallucinated pain?
Create unique visualisations for pain control.

I tend to agree with the succinct post by Clint – Online Graduate – Friday, 2 May 2008 ;

hypnotic anaesthesia: absence of sensation and pain
hypnotic analgesia: reduction or removal of pain

Any more complicated than this and I get lost.

Based on the experience I have had as a therapist – most clients talk about experiencing real physical pain when they describe pain that various doctors have found no rational and medical reason for. In fact they are often more angry and more stuck than clients who have an explainable reason for their pain such as trauma resulting from an accident.

Fortunately they can respond well to good use of stress reduction and self hypnosis training. It rarely takes all their perceived pain away, but it does make them feel a great deal better.

I can’t remember where I learned it years ago, perhaps it was a Bandler strategy, but one of my favourite instant pain relief visualizations/methodologies goes something like this: ( Working with a headache)

“If it had a colour, what colour would it be?”

(Client says orange)

“OK – if you added some more yellow to it – does this make it better – or worse?”
Mark out tonally “Make it better” (And every subsequent time you use this phrase)
If client says better –You say – “add more yellow – is that better – or worse?”

And so on.

You can try changing the colour.

“How about if you add some blue to it? Is that better – or worse?”

“How about changing the colour completely – turn it all blue – is that better – or worse?”
If it is worse – “change it back to how it was a moment ago.”

Then try another colour.

Not only can you change the colour, but you can ask the client to tell you the shape of the pain and then help them change it.

So for example if they say the shape is like a ball, suggest they make it into a cone shape or a square cube.

You can also have the client move the painful colour about to different places.  So for example if they say the headache is in the front of the head, ask them to move it further back, or to one side (always and each time
asking – “does that make it better – or worse?”)  If it’s worse, just ask them to move it back to how it was a moment ago.

Four or five minutes is all that is needed usually.

There are other submodalities you can play with – I invite you to experiment.

This works really well with headaches, less well with migraines or tooth ache and pretty well with a range of other painful experiences like cut finger, stubbed toe, stomach ache and similar.

If you have never tried this with someone (or yourself) complaining of a headache – give it a go, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised at it’s prompt effectiveness.

http://www.british-hypnosis-research.com