Patients suffering from pain often seek hypnosis when they have run out of options. But if you ask clinical hypnosis guru David Spiegel, M.D., he says it should be your first resort, not your last resort.
Hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy, may be far from the mainstream and some dismiss it as medically unsubstantiated, but Spiegel, a professor and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, says hypnosis can improve brain activity. He has published decades of research examining its effects on brain activity and brain activity. Pain control related to surgery, cancer, and fibromyalgia (a chronic disease that causes musculoskeletal pain and fatigue). His latest research found that there is a genetic basis for why some people are more susceptible to hypnosis than others. He has also developed and narrated a self-hypnosis app aimed at helping people reduce stress, treat insomnia, and even quit smoking.
Mr. Spiegel talked about using hypnosis to control pain, how it works, who can benefit, and when to use hypnosis on yourself.
How do you medically define hypnosis?
Hypnosis is simply a state of heightened concentration. For example, it’s like being so absorbed in a good movie that you forget you’re watching a movie. You are not purely perceiving because you are entering an imaginary world. You are experiencing sensations and emotions in a way that allows you to potentially regulate what you are experiencing. For example, some people may imagine themselves floating away from the physical sensations of anxiety.
How does hypnosis work in treating pain?
Pain is not just a peripheral sensation. It’s also how the brain interprets and manages its sensations. And we can do so many things with our brains to change our level of discomfort. Hypnosis allows you to change your perception and focus your attention. It also allows you to separate yourself from concerns that can amplify your pain.
Using functional MRI, researchers found that during hypnosis, activity in a part of the brain called the salience network decreases. This includes the anterior cingulate cortex. This is the part of the brain that fires when you hear what you think is a gunshot, for example.
Cancer patients experience new pain and think, “Oh my god, the cancer is spreading,” even if it isn’t. By suppressing activity within the salience network through hypnosis, the alarm button is less likely to be triggered.
For example, a cancer patient might be taught to imagine floating comfortably in a warm bath while applying a warm compress to the pain, or to think of other images to relieve the pain. You may be able to do it too. While you are aware that there is pain, you can distance yourself from the discomfort of that sensation.
Is hypnosis more effective for certain types of pain?
Chronic pain is better if you don’t need to pay as much attention to it because the cause is already known and it’s not a sign of a new injury or illness.
However, research shows that it can also be effective for acute pain. In fact, it has been effective in combat, allowing soldiers injured on the battlefield to better cope with their pain and focus on doing what they need to do to survive. This is similar to how a soccer player may break his ankle while playing and not realize it until the end of the game.
The intensity of pain is directly related to its meaning, and hypnosis can help prevent individuals from becoming anxious about any health problems that pain may represent.
Do you understand why some people are more susceptible to hypnosis than others? And your susceptibility to hypnosis depends on how skeptical you are about it. Is it?
There’s a new paper suggesting that some people are genetically predisposed to hypnosis. They have a specific polymorphism in the gene for catechol-O-methyltransferase, an enzyme that affects dopamine metabolism in the brain. People with a moderate metabolic rate, not too much, not too little, maintain a level of dopamine that allows them to experience hypnosis more easily.
Life experience also makes a difference. Most children are easily hypnotized and remain in a trance state most of the time. If you call your 8-year-old for dinner, they won’t hear you because they’re not at work. Some people lose it during adolescence.
People who retain the ability to be hypnotized either have had positive imaginative experiences, such as a parent telling them bedtime stories every night, or, sadly, have been physically or emotionally abused. They tend to either have experience with it or have experience with it. They use their imagination to distance themselves from the trauma. However, the hypnotic abilities you gain at age 21 will be what you gain 25 years later.
Approximately two-thirds of adults can be hypnotized. People think that whether or not you believe in hypnosis affects whether you are susceptible to hypnosis, but that is not true. It’s not a matter of faith. It’s a matter of ability and experience.
What hypnosis really helps people do is put aside their preconceptions about pain, stress, and insomnia and approach it from a new perspective.
Do you hypnotize yourself?
i will do it. Many years ago, I underwent surgery for a recurrent shoulder dislocation at Massachusetts General Hospital, and afterward I used self-hypnosis to manage the pain. I was working at a hospital at the time, so I went to read the medical records. The resident wrote, “The patient hardly uses any painkillers. I don’t think many nerves were cut.” There is an incision from the top of the shoulder to the bottom. I can tell you they are cutting nerves.
Photo credit: SecondSide
