Hypnotherapy for chronic pain relief and management

When exploring the definition of pain, it becomes clear that pain is a necessary and sometimes life-saving part of our evolution. We experience pain as an alert, an alarm if you like that forces us into recovery. It is a message from the brain – an alert to stop us from continuing what we’re doing or to force us to check something out for damage.

Persistent pain can be the body’s way of saying ‘I don’t feel safe.’ When the nervous system remains alert, stressed and tense, pain is more likely to stick around. Ideally, you want to feel pain when there is actual or potential tissue damage. However, at times, there is confusion in the messaging system and signals pain for the wrong reasons. 

Pain typically falls into one of three categories: acute pain, which signals immediate injury or illness; chronic pain, which lingers long after we expect; and intermittent pain, which comes and goes, sometimes without a clear cause. Each type tells its own story - and sometimes that story lives more in the nervous system than the tissue.

When you experience pain, it is important to speak with a doctor to check for damage. However, when pain is the result of a confused messaging system. For example, the chronic pain of arthritis is unnecessary and sometimes debilitating. Hypnotherapy for pain management can help you live without pain and explore what your body might need. What does this part of you want to say, or receive, or feel?

Hypnosis for pain relief – emotional states

Research shows a correlation between emotional states and feelings of pain. When you feel angry, anxious, or depressed, your sensitivity to pain is stronger. When you feel happy and positive, pain is easier to manage. There is a vicious circle here because pain can increase feelings of anger, anxiety and depression, thus increasing the feelings of pain.

Pain relief is about creating a felt sense of safety in the body. When your body knows it’s safe, it can begin to release tension, reduce hypervigilance, and shift out of protection mode. Hypnotherapy helps create the conditions for this. Additionally, hypnosis for pain will help you focus on the now, relieving your mind of anxious thoughts. Your hypnotherapist can teach you techniques to help you dissolve any tense, negative feelings in your body.

Hypnotherapy for pain relief – managing the pain

If you have read my previous articles, you will know that I believe hypnosis and meditation are similar mind states. People who meditate regularly do so as a form of brain training. It is a way to remain in the present moment, focused and aware, preventing your mind from wandering off into non-beneficial thoughts.

Meditation and hypnosis help you to feel in control of your physical feelings. Rather than a feeling of pain taking over your whole body and mind, you will learn how to minimise it to the exact spot it comes from and manage it, so you control the feeling rather than the feeling controlling you.

Hypnotherapy for chronic pain – the research

There is a lot of research to show the benefit of hypnosis as a tool for chronic pain relief. A meta-analysis of 85 trials concluded:

“Hypnotic intervention can deliver meaningful pain relief for most people and therefore may be an effective and safe alternative to pharmaceutical intervention.”

Studies show that over 75% of people with diseases like (and including) arthritis experience significant pain relief using hypnosis. In fact, hypnosis is so successful at enabling the user to manage their physical feelings that some clinicians use it instead of or alongside anaesthetics. A reduction of medication to achieve analgesia gives the benefits of reduced side effects and a speedier recovery.

Some research indicates that hypnosis as a tool to manage chronic pain relief is sometimes better than other recognised pain management treatments and consistently superior to no treatment.

Hypnotherapy for pain at home 

If you would like to try hypnotherapy for pain relief, you can achieve greater results with the guidance of an experienced therapist; however, there are some techniques you can use at home if one-to-one therapy is out of reach for you.

1. Positive visualisations

Your brain cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination. When you imagine something, it will behave as if it were reality. Create your happy place; everyone has a different happy place. Some people like to walk in a forest, others lie on a beach. A paradise garden is a suggestion of floating in a luxurious pool of water with a breathtaking view. Create your happy place and spend as little or as long as you like, every day, imagining yourself there and pain-free.

2. Progressive relaxation

Sit or lie comfortably and close your eyes, take a journey through your body, relaxing each part from the tip of your toes to the end of the hair on your head. When you have softened each area and you feel as though you are sinking into the surface beneath, you notice the sensation that you call pain.

Narrow it down to a specific area and imagine it as a shape or object. You can detail this object with a colour, weight, size, texture, etc. When the feeling is an object like this, you can take control of it. Will you remove it from your body with your mind and throw it away? Will you achieve pain reduction from greater control and less overwhelm? See what works for you.

3. Going within

Using the same relaxation technique as above, when you feel the deepness of relaxation and focus, imagine yourself travelling within. Use your mind to travel internally to the source of your pain. Now you can use visualisations and the power of your mind to 'repair' the source of the pain.

Perhaps you will use an imaginary sewing kit or some glue. Maybe something needs a good clean with a magic cloth. An imaginary pot of oil or grease might fix the aches and pains of worn joints. Explore the depths of your creativity to use your mind to fix your body.

Pain invites us to reconnect. To rhythm. To movement. To safety. Hypnotherapy can help you manage pain and support your nervous system in remembering how to feel settled, how to trust the signals, and how to soften into your body.