The Pain management program is one of the most rewarding programs for the Hypnotherapist at The Hypnotherapy Wellness Centers. Unfortunately for our clients hypnotherapy is the last attempt to obtain a better quality of life. Our clients often say, "If I had known about this 20 years ago my life would have been very different". We do hope you do not wait 20 years to experience the benefits of our pain management program. Continue reading below for more detailed information or call today to start the healing!
864-370-0388 828-216-2963
Greenville SC and WNC at Asheville
One of the earliest uses of the trance state is for the reduction of pain, clinically known as analgesia. It is because hypnosis leads to a relaxed state (in most people) that people have come to associate relaxation as a requisite of trance, which is not true. You can be well in trance and not feel relaxed. A good example of this is phantom-limb pain, in which an amputee will feel the pain in a limb that is no longer present. This is a classic definition of trance dissociation. Another is the escalation a chronic-pain sufferer will experience upon the slightest hint of oncoming pain. The expectation of further pain produces more. However, the wise therapist also knows the expectation of pleasure produces more pleasure, as well. And this is where hypnosis comes in.
We know pain is a very complex construct. Pain seems to be modulated by neuropeptides forming what we call informational networks. These information substances trigger receptors that reside at the cellular level. When opiate receptors are triggered, endorphins and other such neuropeptides begin a process of mind-body communication that can regulate activities ranging from gastrin secretion to everyday emotions. There seem to be seven major nodes of the neuropeptide network each modulating different functions, such as the cerebral cortex where consciousness resides, and the dorsal horn of the spine where the organs make their first synaptic contact with the CNS. Two of these seven nodes are very much associated with pain. The periaqueductal gray region of the brain stem is thought to mediate the effect of expectation and conscious control on pain perception. This is one area where hypnosis seems to be quite active. Another is the limbic-hypothalamic system which modulates mind-body information transfer and what we call state-dependent memory learning and behavior. The amygdala and hippocampus, found in the hypothalamic-limbic region, are important in the integration of learning, memory, motivation and emotions, and are rich in these opiate receptors, having a higher concentration than in any other area of the brain.
Putting this all together, hypnosis has been found to influence the limbic-hypothalamic areas, which in turn stimulate certain learnings. By triggering the opiate receptors' production of related neurotransmitters, these learnings can influence basic mind-body communication, including the periaqueductal gray region and thus the perception of pain, and ranging all the way through the immunal, endocrinal, and autonomic nervous systems. So what are these "learnings?" The hypnotherapist can help the client learn to diminish the pain, gradually. It's hard to reduce pain from 100% (of present) to 30% in one session. But to reduce it to 97% is quite imaginable. Once this is accomplished, the state-dependent-memory and learning construct in the hypothalamus has a new message upon which it will build. The expectation that next time the client can reduce it to 94% can be communicated to the pqd gray region, thus mediating pain. That's just one example. Similarly, the hypnotherapist may use other methods -- age regression to a time before the pain or illness began, analytic investigation of the secondary gain of the pain, behavioral training to displace the pain with something (emotion, sensation, or reward) more satisfying, or even permission to be alive. One of my favorite techniques is to teach the client how to displace the pain to another, less sensitive region of the body. In cases of too great pain, often the sufferer's spouse/partner must be used to demonstrate how pain reduction (or, in general, sensitivity-reduction) can be used, allowing the client to process the information unconsciously (again, often by the hypothalamic-limbic area). All-in-all, I think hypnosis is nothing more, functionally, than creating the opportunity for new learnings for the unconscious to use in the eradication of symptom-generating old learnings and leading to the production of new values and modes of thinking, doing, and being. How it does that, structurally, is quite another matter. The above-stated summary is a step on the path to link hypnosis scientifically to mind-body processes. For these theories, I am indebted to the work of Candace Pert (and her colleagues at the National Institute of Health) and Francis Schmitt.
A question came in just as we were going to press regarding the use of hypnosis in healing clogged arteries. I want to spend some time on what seems to respond to hypnotic healing, physiologically, and I'll do that next month. I just want to state now that the same mechanisms mentioned above would be responsible in unclogging arteries, if possible, as well as reducing pain -- physical or emotional. Instead of the "animal magnetism" of Mesmer, which was thought to be the mediating force behind hypnosis a couple of centuries ago, we now believe neuropeptides are. More on the actual symptoms next month.
From the newsletter of SAICHEK/VAIL HYPNOTHERAPY
For More Information Contact:
HYPNOTHERAPY WELLNESS CENTER
Greenville SC and Asheville NC
Tel: 864-370-0388
828-216-2963
Internet: hypnotherapywell@bellsouth.net
