Hypnosis and Pain
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Employed historically for regulating perceptions of pain before the advent of anesthesia (Norrgran, 2001), hypnosis has been found to be effective in helping patients to cope with various types of pain (Marcuse, 1993). The use of hypnosis for the purpose of pain management is known as hypnotic analgesia or anesthesia, depending on the impact on the level of bodily sensation. While analgesia is focused on reducing the sensation of pain, anesthesia offers a partial or total elimination of bodily sensations in parts or the entire body. Various hypnotic techniques are used for regulation of pain: Direct suggestion of analgesia: The hypnotist uses suggestions to induce the decrease or the removal of perception of pain in the specific part of the body that is experiencing pain (Yapko, 1995, p. 113). "Glove anesthesia": With this technique, patients are anesthesized in either one or both hands through suggestions. Then they can shift the effect of the anesthesia to any part of the body (Yapko, 1995, p. 113). "Dissociation": Through dissociation, patients separate their conscious awareness from their experience of pain, thus enabling to reduce their perceptions of pain (O'Hanlon & Martin, 1992, p. 177). "Time distortion": In time distortion, patients learn to subjectively increase their perceptions of the amount of time of their feelings of comfort and vice versa, regardless of the objective reality (O'Hanlon & Martin, 1992, p. 177). Evocation of pain-free memories: By reco
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issed as being unreliable. Therefore, researchers have invested tremendous efforts in designing and implementing studies of hypnosis and pain management to address the controversies surrounding the role of hypnosis and the effectiveness of hypnotic techniques in pain management. To address the aforementioned hypotheses of non-state theorists, researchers have focused their investigation on whether subjects are able to cope with pain through hypnotic techniques or cognitive techniques (as proposed by non-state theorists).
An early study conducted by McGlashan, Evans and Orne (1969) compared the responses of groups of high and low hypnotizables in both placebo and hypnosis conditions to assess whether hypnosis can simply be explained by the cognitive process of suggestibility. In this experiment, a tourniquet was placed on the forearms of all the subjects while they were instructed to pump water from one container to the other. The ability of the subjects (all male) to continue to pump water provided an assessment of their effectiveness in coping with the increasing pain. The findings indicated that the low hypnotizables demonstrated a small decrease in pain in both the hypnosis and placebo conditions. On the other hand, th
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Druckman Bjork, Nonetheless Hawkins, O'Hanlon Martin, II Controversy, Applications II, , Evans Orne, Miller Bowers', Spanos Katsanis, Retrieved January, pain management, hypnosis pain, cognitive processes, non-state theorists, hypnosis pain management, perceptions pain, wagstaff 2001, effects hypnosis, marcuse 1993, january 26 2004, beneficial effects, january 26, retrieved january 26, o'hanlon martin 1992, druckman bjork 1994,
Approximate Word count = 3041
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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