Evolutions In Clinic, Mobile & Corporate Massage

How does Hypnosis Relieve Pain?

Edward John Fearn

I am often asked the question how does hypnosis relieve pain, and how exactly is this different from the placebo effect ? When I work with clients I often create an experience of what is called glove anaesthesia during our hypnosis session. Suggestions are given that one hand will begin to lose a certain amount of feeling as if it were touched with a local anaesthetic. With practice one can develop a certain level of  anaesthesia that can be moved to any area of the body where pain is noticed. I have worked with women, that with practice have experienced little or no pain during childbirth. Another client that comes to mind had minor surgery done on their hand without any noticeable discomfort, I observed their breathing pattern, their facial expressions and they did not appear to notice the surgery at all, they were simply too interested in the words that I spoke, the inclination, the content,, to even notice any discomfort or pain. Hypnosis can be an extremely effective, powerful and non invasive tool for pain management.

As to how hypnosis works to relieve pain, while we still have some way to go the following passages shed some light on the mechanisms involved;

Early researchers put forward that hypnotic analgesia is attributed to neural/ non- opiates. The opiate class was eliminated as this form of analgesia is not reversed by naloxone. The involvement of a hormonal non- opiate was also considered unlikely because of the rapidity in which hypnotic analgesia can be produced or reversed. (1)

A small trial using atropine as a cholinergic inhibitor, and two kinds of placebo seemed to demonstrate that highly hypnotisable subjects may in part have weaker cholinergic mechanisms than less hypnotisable subjects. (2)

Unlike placebo, hypnosis treatment, diminished pain ratings are associated with activity changes not only in the pain network, but also in the occipital cortex and basal ganglia

. “This does not seem to happen during placebo treatment. For example the functional connectivity was seen to increase between ACC, insula, thalamus, prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia and to decrease between ACC and visual cortex during hypnotic analgesia.”(3)

 

(1) Goldstein A, Hilgard E R, (1975) Lack of influence of the morphine antagonist naloxone on hypnotic analgesia Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 72 2041-2043 176, 183, 184. 186, 187, 224

(2) Sternbach R A (1982) On strategies for identifying neurochemical correlates of hypnotic analgesia. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 30: 251-256. 224

(3) Brain activity during pain relief using hypnosis and placebo treatments: A literature review: Journal of European Psychology Students (JEPS), JEPS Vol 3 (2012)