The power of Hypnotherapy regained its popularity in the mid-1900 due to the notoriety and career of Milton H. Erickson (1901-1980), a successful psychiatrist who used hypnosis in his practice. Hypnotherapy by the name itself implies the use of hypnosis.

The brain operates in four general states determined by the frequency of the electricity generated by the exchange of chemicals in the neural pathways. The four states include Full Conscious Awareness, the Hypnotic State, the Dream State, and the Sleep State. Hypnotherapies typically use exercises that bring about deep relaxation and an altered state of consciousness, also known as a trance.

What Is Pain Anyway?

Pain is a sensation that hurts. It may cause discomfort, distress or agony. It may be steady or throbbing. It may be stabbing, aching, or pinching. However you feel pain, only you can describe it or define it. Because pain is so individual, your pain cannot be ?checked out? by anyone else.

Pain may be acute or chronic. Acute pain is severe and lasts a relatively short time. It is usually a signal that body tissue is being injured in some way, and the pain generally disappears when the injury heals. Chronic pain may range from mild to severe, and it is present to some degree for long periods of time.

Hypnotherapy as a tool to manage pain may be new to some of us. We are used to control pain by using common analgesic or some medical approaches to reduce pain. The goal of hypnotherapy for pain management is to produce deep relaxation for the reduction or amelioration of fear, tension and anxiety that is concomitant with pain.

Every hypnotherapist know for a fact that they could not use hypnosis to treat and manage pain of a patient not unless the cause of pain is already diagnosed by the physician. Hypnotherapy most of the time is a recommended treatment for chronic pain patients.

Hypnotherapists use different techniques to manage pain. Pain displacement or Pain Transference is one of the most common among these techniques. The pain can be moved from its site to an insignificant place in the body like an earlobe where it can be modified and reduced. Glove anesthesia: one of the hands is made numb and then that numbness is applied to the painful site as it leaves the hand. The numbness may be induced by the suggestion that the hand is submerged in a bucket of ice water or injected with lidocaine , a local anaesthetic agent. Another technique is the Protective shield wherein the patient imagines a protective screen around the body shielding the body from pain. In time and body dissociation: the patient is made to escape from the present condition of pain to a more pleasurable and enjoyable place/moment away from pain.