SPECIFIC PAIN CONTROL TECHNIQUES
• Suggestions of deep relaxation in themselves can be effective as they reduce the anxiety that often accompanies pain. These suggestions can be enhanced by providing imagery under pleasant environmental conditions, with as much visual and sensory imagery as possible. For example, asking patients to imagine that they are in a mountain cabin in the snow can be therapeutic in itself or it can lead to the production of ‘glove anaesthesia’. This may occur when patients are asked to imagine going for a walk in the snow, picking up a handful of snow, holding it to the pain area and then transferring the cold and numbness to replace the pain.
• Direct suggestions of pain relief by telling pain sufferers under hypnosis that the pain will disappear and will not return in the waking state, may be effective.
• The hypnotic transfer of pain from one part of the body to another, where it is less disabling, may benefit those patients who have a psychological need for the pain to continue whether for sympathy or to get a greater financial settlement. For example, such patients may be able to transfer their pain from their abdomen to a finger.
• Hypnosis can be used to change pain sensations into more easily tolerated sensations such as tingling, or feelings of warmth or cold. It can be suggested that the pain will be experienced as a pleasant ‘buzzing’ or ‘warmth’ sensation rather than an acute or deep sensation.
• Under the hypnotic state, people use their imagination to think of their pain as an interesting experience — neutral and distinct from the suffering it may produce. It may be suggested that the pain is changed to a ‘pleasant sensation’, incompatible with pain or suffering. People are asked to hallucinate these sensations, to dream them or to project them on to a movie screen in their imagination. For example: ‘Imagine that you’re sitting comfortably in front of a screen. Now, imagine that on the screen you can see yourself — not as you’ve been, but as you would like to see yourself — without pain — and able to function at your maximum capacity.
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