Hypnotherapy for Pain Relief

Cultures have utilised trance states to bypass pain for millennia. The Ancient Greeks used hypnotic trance, which they called 'incubation', to attain deep states of healing. The Romans also took on the Greek idea of sleep temples, where trance states were induced for days; one such 'temple of hypnosis' was unearthed in Gloucestershire, UK. Many African and Asian cultures use or have used trance states, induced by rhythmic drumming for many reasons, including enduring painful rituals, as with the Hindu Thaipusam festival in India or Thailand's Nine Emperor Gods festival, where devotees pierce their bodies with sharp hooks and push spears and swords through their cheeks. The Egyptians, Persians, Sumerians, Chinese, and New World Indians, from the Inuit in the north and all through the Americas, also knew about and utilised the state of trance, hypnosis.

In the 1840s James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon employed by the East India Company at Hooghly Imambara Hospital, India and also as a medical officer at Hooghly Gaol Hospital, performed well over 300 'pain-free' major surgeries and 2000 minor ones, including amputations, removal of cataracts and the removal of massive tumours using, what he called 'mesmerism', though what is known today as hypnosis, or more specifically, hypno-analgesia and hypno-anaesthesia. It is also significant that the same official records reveal the unanticipated consequence that Esdaile’s hypno-analgesia surgeries not only prevented what would have been excruciating pain but also a huge reduction in the post-surgical mortality rate, from 50% to 5%, due to the significant lessening of post-operative shock.

It is clear evident that being in a trance state can eliminate pain, but can such a state be used to decrease pain, keep it minimal, or give a patient the ability to reduce pain whenever it arises? From my experience, the answer is definitely yes. Pain is not a condition of the body; like hypnosis, it is a condition of the mind. Researchers have shown that our subconscious minds are 30,000 times more powerful than our conscious minds; hypnotherapy is merely a way to access that power. We constantly dip in and out of our unconscious; it is our operating system, the repository of our life experiences, and our deepest beliefs and rules that we usually can't easily access or change. For instance, a harmless little mouse might cause total panic if there's a subconscious belief linking mice with complete terror, and no amount of logical discussion or common-sense advice will alter that until the corrupted pathway is rerouted or rewritten. Then, change can be almost instantaneous; such is the power of the subconscious mind and consequently, the power of hypnosis.

Fortunately, over the past two decades, research into hypnosis for pain relief has flourished. In a recent 2021 meta-analysis titled 'Hypnosis and the alleviation of pain', Leonard Milling concluded, "Our findings strengthen the assertion that hypnosis is a very efficacious intervention for alleviating clinical pain," and a 2019 paper by Trevor Thompson in Neuroscience & Biobehavioural Reviews states, "Findings suggest that hypnotic intervention can deliver meaningful pain relief for most people and therefore may be an effective and safe alternative to pharmaceutical intervention." A meta-analysis of 18 studies demonstrated that hypnosis can produce "A moderate to large hypno-analgesic effect," supporting the effectiveness of hypnotic techniques for pain management. The results also showed that hypnotic suggestion was equally effective in reducing both clinical and experimental pain (GH Montgomery, 2000). The American Psychological Association's website, the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 122,000 members, currently states, "Hypnosis is likely to be effective for most people suffering from diverse forms of pain, with the possible exception of a minority of patients who keep themselves resistant to hypnotic interventions."

Hypnosis is more effective than other non-pharmacological interventions, such as physical therapy and pain education. It can provide analgesia, reduce stress, relieve anxiety, improve sleep and mood, and potentially lessen the need for opioids. Hypnosis can also enhance the effectiveness of other conventional treatments for pain.