KNOWLEDGE
Very few people have any real knowledge of hypnosis. Usually, what little they know has been gained from stage hypnosis, television or from popular books.
Joan’s headaches
‘I get these incredible headaches every day above my right eye. I’ve had them so long that it’s hard to remember exactly when they started. But they’ve increased over the past 18 months,’ related Joan, 39, a fashion buyer at a large department store.
She had been suffering for years with persistent migraine headaches for which she had not been able to get relief from her GP, psychiatrists, osteopaths, physiotherapists and chiropractors.
‘I’m at my wits’ end. I can’t sleep,’ Joan complained. ‘The slightest upset at work, or cross word at home, brings on these crushing headaches. ‘I can’t take much more. I feel I’m going to snap,’ she said, describing how acupuncture and numerous medications had failed to give her long-term relief.
With two or three sessions of hypnosis, together with an appropriate anti-depressant medication, Tryptanol, she was able to control her headaches for the first time in many years. It is now some two years since she attended the pain clinic but Joan still uses her hypnosis tapes. She is still taking the long-term dose of Tryptanol which is being used primarily to control her pain.
When first seen her marriage was suffering, she had lost interest in sex and there were numerous rows because her husband seemed incapable of understanding the reasons for her frequent headaches. Extensive psychological tests at the clinic established that Joan had a very high score for obsessionality. She was an absolute perfectionist.
One of the things Joan learned from hypnosis and relaxation therapy is that things don’t have to be absolutely perfect all the time. She has learned to flow with life’s day-to-day problems rather than having a low threshold of tolerance to annoyances.
This means she now virtually has no headaches. She has accepted the need for taking long-term medication, being reassured that anti-depressants, unlike tranquillisers, are totally safe and are non-addictive. The important thing is that she has accepted the fact that she may have pain of varying degrees indefinitely but that she can cope as long as she takes the medication and uses self-hypnosis.
Joan’s case is an excellent example of what a powerful pain treatment tool hypnosis is — far removed from the tawdry stage-show image. Hypnosis is a form of psychological therapy involving a state of selective concentration, spontaneity and detachment. Thus, it has long been applied as either a primary or additional therapy in many pain states including burns, migraine, cancer and also in obstetrics. It may also be highly effective in chronic organic pain, particularly of malignant origin and for patients able to disassociate themselves from their pain experience.
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