Medical Hypnosis and Pain
By Greg Turner | January 11, 2015
Medical hypnosis and pain are two phrases closely associated, as the hypnosis community has long said that hypnosis can be used to relieve pain of all types. Finally, here in the 21st century proof of this assertion is coming forward, as can been seen in the Wall Street Journal article linked to at the bottom of this post.
It has long been known that hypnosis and hypnotherapy can help in many medical scenarios, such as diminishing side effects of chemotherapy, lowering blood pressure, controlling asthma attacks, and reducing migraine headaches and hot flashes. Indeed, the Wall Street article says that there is increasing scientific evidence that proves this to be true.
One way that hypnosis works to alleviate pain is through focused attention. In fact, most people has already experienced this without going into a formal trance. Most people have experienced getting a skinned knee or a paper cut and due to the situation at hand their attention is focused elsewhere, away from the abrasion or cut and they don’t even realize they have been injured until much later.
The only difference here is that in a formal trance, you learn how to take your attention away from the pain onto something else much more comfortable and pleasant. In fact, using a hypnotic trance to take attention away from pain is so powerful that I have seen a video of major surgery being done with hypnosis as the only anesthetic!
When I work with clients to use hypnosis to ease pain I always require a medical doctor’s referral. Why is this? Pain is a useful signal to you. It can signal that something is wrong that needs to be taken care of. For instance, a pain somewhere in the body could be a signal that there is a cancerous tumor there. I would not be doing anyone any good to help them relieve the pain with hypnosis all the while letting the real reason for the pain be left unattended. That is why I always require a client to get check out first by a medical doctor and if the doctor says it is OK to relieve the pain with hypnosis, then I will do just that.
Here is the article to the Wall Street Journal as promised. Read it and if I can be of help be sure to call me. Medical Hypnosis: You Are Getting Very Healthy.