Please bear in mind that as there are as many procedures as there are people, these are just the tips of the iceberg.
|
1. The Hypnotist can redirect the focus of attention away from the pain to an appropriate image of tranquillity.
|
This is an extremely popular induction/intervention because of the feeling of general relaxation it can create, and is also used to relieve the stress which often follows pain on a conscious level.
|
la. The Hypnotist can redirect the focus of attention away from the pain by playing a piece of music.
|
The mind finds it difficult to concentrate on two ‘significant’ experiences of the same time.
|
2. The Client can be gently regressed to a time before the pain manifested itself. Alternatively, the Client’s attention can be directed to a time in the future when the physiological balance has been restored and the pain is a distant memory. The regression and progression techniques are handy tools in the Hypnotist’s bag.
|
Regression is often used as an information gatherer and/or enlightener, and progression or future orientation as a way of mentally rehearsing, evaluating and taking control of future events.
|
3. Amnesia can be induced, the Client’s natural ability to forget or ‘tune out’ the pain can be suggested. One of the more complicated approaches, useful especially with people who suffer noxious sensory stimuli on a continuous basis. Remember, people who live near busy train lines are, after some time, oblivious to the expresses passing, while a visitor would Find the noise quite irritating, distracting and ‘painful’.
|
4. The Hypnotist can suggest the client redefine the actual experience of the pain itself, transforming it into a far less bothersome sensation.
|
Alternatives such as an itch or a hot or cool feeling can be offered, thus giving the Client actual control of the Pain~Helplessness~ Stress~Pain cycle.
|
A technique often used incorporating symbolic representation because of its somewhat indirect nature.
|
5. Once a suitable depth of trance has been achieved (usually deep or Somnambul) the Client can be helped to disassociate from his or her body, viewing themselves from another point in the room. Naturally, disassociating from the body means doing the same from the painful sensation, thus breaking the Somatic Bridge and becoming a casual observer of the physiological process of pain and pain reaction.
|
6. The Hypnotist can enable the Client to use his or her own natural ability to change their subjective experience of time.
|
This highly sophisticated manoeuvre, is utilised when a person suffers sporadic bouts of pain on a more or less continuous basis.
|
After explanation that everybody has in their life found that there are times when time itself seems to go slower than others and there are times when time seems to fly by, the client is, after ‘deep’ trance has been induced, given suggestions, some embedded in metaphor, others of a more direct nature, that they can compress the time duration of the painful experience until it really ‘flies’ by. Conversely the span of time between the bouts can be stretched and made to feel relaxing and luxuriously long.
|
With all the above strategies, the Hypnotist would, as a matter of course, give a post-hypnotic suggestion appropriate to the Client’s lifestyle where by the trance situation and pain management or elimination programme can be reassessed. Behavioural or environmental cues, positive phrase repetition and external stimulus are within the general framework.
|
The basic principle being that the Hypnotist reminds the Client they are in control of the pain, thus empowering them and alleviating the sense of helplessness and despair.
|
For too long Man has looked outside himself for help with problems such as pain, stress, suffering and the feeling of misery that follows a few steps behind. Of course drugs have an important role to play but in some cases can lead to dependency and create further problems of a psychological or physical nature.
|
It is, I believe, about time that society started viewing hypnosis not as some suspicious mumbo-jumbo capable of making people cluck like chickens, or bark like dogs, but as a set of tools. Tools giving people the ability to reach into the vast reservoir of Human experience and resource.
|
And, as tools such as the flint axe have evolved, so too has our innate ability to tap into our almost limitless potential.
|
|
