Pain Relief

Experiencing pain is not only noticeably uncomfortable, it also affects cognitive bandwidth, not only do we suffer the discomfort our effectiveness is also reduced.  Helping reduce and manage pain with Hypnotherapy is personally fulfilling.  Read this page for information about pain and using Hypnotherapy for pain relief.

Types of Pain:

Pain is categorised based on its severity, occurrence and sensation examples are:

• Acute Pain – generally short term and dissipates when the cause is treated.
• Chronic Pain – a longer term pain.
• Referred Pain – where an injury or issue with one part of the body manifests as a pain somewhere else.  This can occur due to the shared use of pathways sending information to the brain.

There are more specialist terms, for example nerve pain; medical professionals use these to define specifics.

Various pain assessments can be consolidated under the heading Total Pain.  Total pain provides an overview of how pain affects a person and the affect their lifestyle has on the pain.  This includes considerations such as:

• Work
• Behaviours
• Social Activities
• Spiritual Beliefs

The Purpose of Pain:

Pain is unpleasant for a reason, it serves on the lower end as a warning signal and at the higher end as an obstacle.  Think of a time when you have been completing an activity and felt some discomfort, did you carry on the activity or stop?

Your answer will largely depend on what you were doing and then a whole bunch of other factors for examples:

• Was this an enjoyable activity
• Did you stand to gain from continuing
• Was the end ‘in sight’
• Were others depending on you
• Was there an alternative (avoiding discomfort)
• Did you use some Pain Relief

How we deal with Pain:

The points should help you to notice how we deal with pain in everyday life, either to minimise, avoid or tolerate.

Minimising pain can take various routes, we may make changes to our activity or ourselves.  Changes to a physical activity may mean shorter bursts, reduced load or having assistance from another.  Making changes to ourselves may involve a warm up routine, protective clothing or medication.

Avoiding and tolerating leave little for the imagination; either don’t engage with the task or put up with the pain.

Hypnotherapy for Pain Relief:

Appreciation for the pain, the cause, and the purpose all come into how we can use Hypnotherapy to make life easier and more enjoyable.  Again I push the insistence that if you have unexplained pain take medical advice.  Relieving pain with Hypnotherapy takes two approaches, reducing the painful sensation and in some cases working with the causes; it cannot set a broken leg in plaster.

Typical examples of uses for Hypnotherapy in pain relief include:

• Dental Pain
• Labour Pain
• Headaches
• Stomach Pain
• Joint Pain
• Post Operative Pain
• Fracture Pain
• Back Pain

Hypnotherapy calls on a variety of techniques to understand and resolve pain; some of these can become personal strategies ready for your own deployment.

A single session of hypnotherapy can help to reduce some pain, especially for people who have used hypnotherapy before.  Mastering the more involved techniques and being able to control pain yourself usually requires further interventions.

Headache and Migraine

Headache and Migraine are caused by a variety of stimulus, sometimes serving as a warning system that we need to take a break they can have a negative impact on quality of life.

Treatment of headaches and migraine with hypnotherapy can be very effective (Ref: 1,2,3) using a joint approach of pain control and reduction of stimulus – this may for example be Anxiety fed.

Typically hypnotherapy treatment will require a program of two to six sessions and result in the client having personal resources and strategies to deploy at when required in the future.

Prior to treatment for regular or prolonged symptoms of headache or migraine by hypnosis it is important to have been examined and diagnosed by a medical doctor.

Appointments are available at our therapy rooms in Bath or your preferred location subject to suitability and practicality.  To discuss treatment of Headaches and Migraine with Hypnotherapy please email, telephone or use the form on this site.