Though few people actually welcome it, few would deny that it has an essential role to play in our survival. After all, without pain, we simply wouldn't be aware that tissue damage is taking place somewhere in our body and that we need to do something - fast.

In any approach to pain, of course, we need to first check with a qualified doctor or other medical practitioner. It is essential that we get a proper medical evaluation of our situation and the correct treatment for any disease or injury that we may have suffered.

But what if we have already done this? What if we have got pain's message, done all we - and the doctor - can do and yet still the pain exists?

This is the situation that millions of people face on a regular basis. And for anyone compelled to endure this kind of pain, the quality of life itself becomes seriously diminished.

Generally speaking, pain may be divided into two distinct types: Acute pain and chronic pain.

Acute pain is useful and indeed, essential. It lets us know what needs attention and this is why it exists. It's a signal relayed from the wounded area to the brain alerting us to take action.

But chronic pain is altogether different. With pain of this kind, we have already received the message and still it persists. It is ongoing and relentless. It's as if we seem to be just stuck with it.

Indeed, the chronic pain generated by conditions such as rheumatism, back and shoulder pain, arthritis, migraine headaches, post surgical pain, cancer (and sometimes its treatment), fybromyalgia etc serves no useful purpose. It is unneeded for our survival.

In a nutshell: Chronic pain is useless pain.

When pain outlives its usefulness it needs to be muted or silenced.

The surprising thing, on reflection, is that we usually look to ourselves last in any approach to controlling chronic pain. Yet it is within our self and our own mind that real pain relief and truly effective pain control can be found.

Because we are so accustomed to looking outside of ourselves for help with pain, we seem to have a learned mind-set of helplessness when it comes to chronic pain. We have been conditioned to accept that something or someone external to ourselves is responsible for making pain go away.

Understanding that we have it within our self to control pain is a major step forward in releasing its truly debilitating grip on our life.

And this is the wonderful power of using hypnosis and self-hypnosis for pain relief.

With effective hypnosis techniques and strategies, we are able to instruct our mind to radically reduce - and in many cases totally eliminate - any pain we may be experiencing.

No pharmaceutical drugs, no electrical apparatus or TEMS machines are required. Indeed, hypnosis is so powerful that it can be, and sometimes is, used instead of local or general anaesthetic in order to completely eliminate pain even in major surgery.

Only the inborn abilities and innate capacities of your own mind are required.

If you or someone you care about suffers from chronic pain, there really is something you can do about it.

By working with an experienced and fully qualified transformational hypnotherapist, you can learn how to control even long-standing chronic pain.

Using the power of your own mind you can indeed learn to control pain - and once again be in control of your life.