More Complementary & Integrative Healthcare Articles
Hypnosis and Pain Management
For more and more health care professionals and alternative practitioners, hypnosis is one of many complementary therapies that are now regarded as mainstream. Regardless of how they are labeled, hypnosis, biofeedback, meditation, relaxation training or autogenic training, there is strong evidence that for many people these complementary approaches work for both acute and chronic pain management.
Hypnosis is an altered state of awareness and relaxation that has been used for over 150 years to alleviate pain. During hypnosis, the person becomes relaxed and is guided to focus on suggestions to let go of distracting thoughts. In this relaxed, focused state, people can experience actual physiologic changes, such as muscles tension lessening, and an increase sense of overall comfort. Then, the person can accept and integrate suggestions for reducing pain. The client can also be taught self-hypnosis and to reinforce the suggestions for reduced pain and increased comfort for themselves.
Research has shown hypnosis to be helpful for both acute and chronic pain. In 1996, a panel of the National Institutes of Health found hypnosis to be effective in easing cancer pain. In recent years, the effectiveness of hypnosis to decrease sensitivity to pain known as hypno-analgesia has been supplemented by well-controlled experiments.
In their 2003 review of controlled clinical studies, Dr. Patterson and fellow psychologist Mark Jensen, PhD, found that hypno-analgesia is associated with significant reductions in ratings of pain, the need for analgesics or sedation, nausea and vomiting, and length of stay in hospitals.
Hypnosis has also been associated with better overall outcome after medical treatment and greater physiological stability. Surgeons and other health providers have reported significantly higher degrees of satisfaction with people treated with hypnosis than with others who received no hypnotic techniques for pain management.
