Pain relief hypnosis, is best viewed as self-hypnosis.
The body-mind system uses pain as a signal that something is wrong, so clearly it's important that you take appropriate medical advice in addition to using the techniques described below. Sometimes, however, someone gets stuck in a way of being that unwittingly reproduces the pain, even when there is no physiological need, or no further physiological need for it. At least, that's how it seems to me.
Before I describe the techniques let me give you a couple of examples of their effectiveness.
Several years ago a man (let us call him John) came to see me with the most severe and chronic pain that I had ever encountered.
Muscle twinge whilst playing golf
Thirty years previously whilst playing golf he 'had done something to his back'. Over the following weeks this 'thing' he had done had begun to cause him more and more pain. He went to the doctor who prescribed painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. These had no effect so the dosage was increased. Still no effect. Physiotherapy didn't help. He then had X-Rays but they gave no hint of what the problem was. The pain got worse.
Thirty years of agony
To cut a long story short, by the time I saw him, thirty years on, he had had a huge variety of different treatments including seven operations, including one that severed nerves in his back (deliberately). He was receiving the most advanced conventional pain-killing work currently undertaken in the UK, including a device semi-implanted into his side that pumped a continuous cocktail of painkillers directly into the base of his spine. Even with this treatment, he was still in absolute agony. He had spent two pain-free weeks a couple of years before he saw me, when they had introduced morphine into the mix of drugs. However, after a fortnight even the effects of the morphine had worn off and he decided to remove it from the cocktail. At the time, he told me, he was the only person ever to come off morphine in this way. He just 'preferred to be in agony and awake than in agony and half asleep.'
I didn't know for sure if I could help him and I had told him so before the appointment. To John, it was just something else to try that he hadn't tried before.
Initial success was short lived
At the end of the first session, the pain, in his words, had been reduced by 50% and we were both delighted by this. The next day, however, he contacted me and said that the pain was back in 'all its glory'. However, because the session was his only experience in three decades of the pain lessening at all (except for the two weeks on the morphine), he was delighted to return for another session the following week.
That week, during the session, the pain disappeared completely to my delight, and to be honest, surprise. He continued to feel pain-free for the rest of the day.
However, the next day he called me to say that the pain had returned as bad as ever.
Stopping the person unwittingly bringing back the pain unwittingly
And I wondered, what do I have to do to stop the pain from returning? What might he be doing, unwittingly, that was bringing back the pain? So next time, I asked him.
Having dealt with many similar (although never such extreme) cases over the years I now know and am very familiar with these kinds of thinking patterns. What he was doing was something like this...
He was asking himself, 'when is the pain going to come back?' and saying to himself, 'I hope the pain doesn't come back!' He was thinking of his back and 'remembering' the pain, and sure enough, his unconscious mind answered his questions for him. As the saying goes, 'you get what you focus on'.
So, next session, in addition to the techniques that follow, I began to teach him to focus on comfort. I said to him, 'where in your body is the most comfortable, it doesn't matter where you find it, whether it is just a patch of skin on your arm, or somewhere deep in your mind. 'Pretend', I said, 'if you don't know for sure, and just begin to imagine a feeling of comfort and ease spreading from that place, very gently, and very slowly, and very easily.' I got him to use this approach as an 'interrupt' pattern, so that whenever his mind would have begun to think about, or remember, the 'old feeling' (the pain he had had), his mind would quickly and smoothly go inside and look for comfort instead. I told him that this takes a little practice, and to be patient with his thoughts.
What followed were four, in the main, pain-free days, as John focused increasingly on comfort, and his unconscious mind began to reward him with what he was looking for.
In all, I saw John seven times, the last two he was completely free of the 'old feeling'. That's not to say that he was in the best of health. Thirty years of agony had taken its toll, but just to be free of his problem had increased the sparkle in his eyes, and now he was able to potter around his garden, enjoying the simple pleasures of life.
Just as a footnote, I have seen many people through the years but John made me laugh more than almost any other. He has a wonderful sense of humour. From the moment I met him his spirit shone through, bright and clear. I may have helped him to unlock the magic inside, but he was an absolute inspiration to me, and for that I will always be grateful.
More back pain success
Then there was the case of the Complementary Health Editor of a major Sunday newspaper. I was assisting on a course given by Dr Richard Bandler, a man whom I greatly admire. The editor was there as a delegate, and as a reporter. Unfortunately for her, it had reached the point where she had had to walk out of the course due to severe back pain, and tears were streaming from her eyes. I worked with her, and at the core of the work were the following two routines, and her pain disappeared completely. A friend of mine who was helping in relaxing her said to her, 'you should do an article on him in your paper'. I wish he had been more specific. The following week two pages were devoted to -Richard Bandler! It's difficult for me to feel bad about this, as Richard has taught me so much, and I commend you all to read anything he has written, and to get hold of his recorded material.
Pain Relief Article Page 2 »
