Pain Management
Pain perception has two parts: First, there is the sensation of something uncomfortable happening to a specific part of your body. Second, there is your reaction to this information. This is the “hurting” part; the part that signals discomfort.
Acute or new pain serves an important and useful function. It warns you that damage is being done to your body. But, when pain becomes chronic and continues long after it has done its job of giving warning, and long after the physical problem has been medically treated, it is no longer needed as a warning!
Some slight discomfort may be needed as a reminder not to overdo things or strain, but the pain is no longer needed at the same degree of intensity or strength. The pain can still remain as a reminder and be less intense and less uncomfortable. This is where hypnosis comes in.
Hypnosis is a relaxed state of attentive concentration that allows your conscious, critical mind to rest temporarily so that you can be receptive to positive thoughts that help you to feel more comfortable.
In this relaxed state of attentive concentration, you are helped to use your own imagination to change your experience in a way that is acceptable and desirable and pleasant for you. So, with hypnosis, you gain more control over the pain and gain more comfort.
Hypnosis is NOT sleep. When you are in hypnosis, you are awake and alert, but you feel deeply and pleasantly relaxed. And when you are deeply relaxed, you cannot feel uncomfortable.
Hypnosis is also an excellent focusing mechanism – helping you to focus away from discomfort and to re-focus on comfort.
Our approach to Hypnosis for pain control works in several ways:
1. When you are deeply relaxed in hypnosis, you cannot be uncomfortable. That is because relaxation is the opposite of discomfort.
2. When you are deeply relaxed, you can filter out uncomfortable sensations and tune into the experience of other more comfortable sensations.
3. When you are deeply relaxed and comfortable, you cannot be angry, or anxious, or scared, or guilty or depressed. So, hypnosis can reduce the emotional impact of chronic pain.
4. Because hypnosis is a state of relaxed easy concentration, your imagination is working, and it is focused and more powerful. Hypnosis is a focusing mechanism. Your Unconscious Mind, your Inner Mind, is responsive to acceptable suggestions, so you do not have to TRY to respond; it just happens ALL on its own, just as pain happens all on its own. So, you can just permit yourself to let go, and let some interesting and comfortable things happen. In fact, there is a pleasant element of surprise in that you can discover a pleasant difference in sensation in your body!
5. In hypnosis, somehow or other, the doorway to your Unconscious Mind opens, so that, with your permission, I can give your Unconscious Mind the information that it needs to have to help you to become more comfortable, and to learn how to do this on your own. This is what makes hypnosis such an excellent tool for pain management, . . . . for relieving discomfort.
Hypnosis works best for appropriately medically diagnosed physical pain. That means that we do not want to use hypnosis to get rid of pain that signals that there is a medical condition that needs to be fixed. We do not want to mask a correctable medical problem. We do want to use hypnosis to get rid of all unnecessary pain and discomfort that has been medically determined to be unnecessary. Hypnosis is also effective with discomfort that has strong psychological or emotional aspects.
Our approach to using Hypnosis for pain control and pain relief is initially to help you into a pleasant and comfortable state of hypnosis and deep relaxation and teach you an exercise in self-hypnosis and self-relaxation that will meet your individual needs. Then, together, we can explore different methods of coping with discomfort that can be helpful for you; self hypnotic coping skills you can use on your own to feel more comfortable.
The benefits of my approach to using Hypnosis for pain relief include:
- Building your inner strength.
- Strengthening your coping skills.
- Relieving tension and stress.
- Sharpening your mind.
- Re-programming negative ideas and suggestions in your Conscious and Subconscious Minds that had been worsening your discomfort. The new, alternative ideas will help you feel more comfortable and maintain your comfort on your own by listening to your CD tape and practicing the exercises you will learn by working with me.
- Helping you use your creative imagination to get comfortable and get out of pain.
- Helping you resolve inner conflicts and thus, reduce stress, tension and pain.
- Teaching you methods to distract and distance yourself from the pain.
- Teaching you ways to alter and transform the pain sensations.
- Helping you reduce the “suffering component” of having chronic pain.
Remember, some pain may be inevitable, but suffering is optional. Free yourself from pain now.
