These days, with too many people taking too many pills because they’re suffering too much pain, hypnosis for pain control is more important than ever.

A track record of pain relief. Hypnosis was pioneered by nineteenth-century surgeons, such as James Esdiale and James Braid, and pain control was one of the earliest uses of hypnosis. Chemical anesthesia (ether, chloroform) came later. And hypnotic pain control techniques have gotten better over time.

• Hypnosis can help you:
• Control pain without painkillers.
• Reduce your dependence on painkillers like Vicodin (hydrocodone), Percocet (oxycodone), or even methadone.
• Reduce withdrawal and cravings.
• Increase the effectiveness of painkillers.

Does it Work?

Let’s look at some research findings:

“Randomized controlled studies with clinical populations indicate that hypnosis has a reliable and significant impact on acute procedural pain and chronic pain conditions.”
—Patterson and Jensen. “Hypnosis and clinical pain,” Psychological Bulletin of the American Psychological Association, 2003

“A pain protocol including hypnosis reduced pain intensity, improved opioid efficiency, reduced anxiety, improved wound outcome while reducing costs. The protocol-guided use of opioids improved patient care without side effects, while hypnosis had significant psychological benefits.”
—Berger, et al. “Impact of a pain protocol including hypnosis in major burns.” Burns, 2010.

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While we’re waiting for scientists to figure out fibromyalgia, what can people do in the meantime? Because, sadly, fibromyalgia is one of those issues that baffles medical science: unknown cause, unknown cure, doesn’t show up in today’s blood-tests, and is generally mysterious.

How do we deal with a problem with an unknown cause? By turning to solutions where knowing the cause isn’t necessary. Suppose I were a tow-truck driver. If you called me to pull your car out of a ditch, I’d get it out even if you didn’t tell me how it got there. No problem.

Hypnosis for Fibromyalgia

Hypnosis works with fibromyalgia the same way it works for other issues: I get you into a hypnotic state where the usually inaccessible parts of the mind are listening, and give hypnotic suggestions for comfort, healing, stamina, enthusiasm, and well-being. The way I do it, I combine relaxation, direct suggestion, and guided imagery, approaching the problem from many different angles.

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The first time someone asked me about hypnosis for alien abductions, I was a little taken aback. “You want to abduct an alien? With hypnosis?”

But they explained to me that it’s more like, “I think maybe I was abducted by aliens. Can I find out in hypnosis?”

First, let me level with you: I have no training at all in forensic hypnosis. There really is such a thing as forensic hypnosis, with an idea of helping people remember things in a way that’s clean enough to help an investigation. But I have no training in it. And I’m no expert in aliens, either.

A True Story On a Related Theme

A client came to me and felt that her troubles lay in a past life. Well, past-life regression happens to be one of those things that we hypnotists do. I told her that this is done with no guarantees. I’m pretty confident that you’ll have an interesting hypnotic experience, and likely it will be moving and powerful as well. Will the things you remember be literally true? They often feel that way, but I can’t make any promises, because I don’t know! (But if a past-life experience leads you to buried treasure, please send me a post card.)

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