Teaching Nurses Hypnotic Pain Control Techniques

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Melissa J. Roth on December 30, 2009 at 6:49pm

I know you directed this to Greg but I'll throw in my 2 cents too. Pain creates its own trance so there is no need for a formal induction, rapid or otherwise, in pain control. I wouldn't use any induction in an emergency situation other than, "I'm a pain control specialist. Do you want out of pain so the doctors can do their work?" Then, look into my eyes and pay attention to exactly what I say and exactly what I tell you to do and ignore everythinge else for a couple of minutes."

Greg M said:

Gate Control Theory, as I am given to understand it, is based upon the notion that the brain can only consciously process so much information at a given time, and the focal points of the input stream can be expanded when pain is involved in order to diffuse or even ignore the pain entirely.

When applying Gate Control hypnotically or with waking trance, you have a variety of highly adaptable choices available, any of which work quite well "on the fly." Here's a sample:

You can say "Look into my eyes; I am going to help you make the pain go way down now. Think about the way I am holding your hand" (take their hand, if it won't add to the pain). You then apply suggestions liberally to shift focus away from the pain. Right off the bat, you've diffused the pain signal on multiple fronts, you have your voice, your eyes, your touch, all distracting them from the immediate sensations of pain. You first affirm that they are feeling less pain (or at least there's a difference now, and the difference is better), and then apply suggestions relating to the affected area itself. These suggestions will vary according to the type and location of the pain, but their function is to allow the area to receive a touch from their own hand, both now and for use in the future (anchored), that diffuses the general signal from a few highly distressed neurons to a larger group of unstressed neurons that includes the original group in the same region of the body (touching the surrounding area directly is best whenever possible). The overall effect is that the brain feels far less pain because the batch of neurons being consciously 'felt' is large enough to drop the overall pain level as "sensed" by the person. (Formal induction is completely unnecessary in this case; just jump in and assume control of their pain trance.)

To help make the definition of Gate Control itself clearer, here's another example:
The dentist uses non-hypnotic Gate Control when they place a small hand vibrator against your cheek when they have to make the anaesthetic injection. (If your dentist does NOT do this, ask them why not.) You feel the vibrator as a non-painful stimulus that enlarges the size of the batch of neurons you're consciously processing from that region, and when they give you the needle, you either feel nothing at all or else it's so minimal, your mind scarcely notices (unless they hit bone, and even then, it's not nearly so bad as without.)

Bottom line, Gate Control means closing the gate on pain because the signal being processed is watered down with extra, non-distressed, signal being incorporated from the same region. Anchor it hypnotically, and any time it flares up, they can lay on their own hands, or employ the right visualization to produce the same effect.

Tracy Donegan said:

Hi Greg,

Can you tell me more about what you do with the gate control theory?

When working with someone in an emergency situation and in pain is there any need to do a rapid induction if they are already in a highly suggestive state?

Tracy

Permalink Reply by Tracy on December 31, 2009 at 12:47am

Greg and Melissa thank you so much - this is very helpful.

Tracy

Permalink Reply by Gretchen Hogg on January 7, 2010 at 2:36pm

Bravo Melissa, I am familiar with a lot of your work so know that you will bring an amazing amount of knowledge and wisdom to your class. And, Judith Prager's work is amazing - one of my favorite quotes from her book is "Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them good or ill. -Siddhartha Gotoma (Buddha).
As a nurse for over 30 years, I think it would be highly effective to encourage nurses (and any medical staff) to really hear how they talk to their patients and to have a heightened awareness of how powerful their words and can be especially since patients are already in an altered state and so highly suggestible. The nocebo effect can have such long term consequences. A perfectly simple example is to reframe the "Pain Scale" into a "Comfort Scale." I would also love for nurses to learn to rephrase such things as, "You will feel pain, etc." into "Some people experience this or you may experience this, however".......always providing an option. I know you have wonderful hypnotic pain control techniques so that would be my only suggestion to make sure that nurses realize how much of an impact their words truly have on the patient's perception of pain. If you develop a program to teach for those of us who would like to teach this in our local hospitals, I would be very interested. Blessings
Gretchen Hogg

Permalink Reply by Joshua Johnston on January 7, 2010 at 2:47pm

Wow. Both posts contained here are very informative and I could have used them a little better on Monday during the accident my wife and I were in. I was one of the injured party, though, so I think I can be excused for not getting it perfect. ;)

Joshua

Melissa J. Roth said:

I know you directed this to Greg but I'll throw in my 2 cents too. Pain creates its own trance so there is no need for a formal induction, rapid or otherwise, in pain control. I wouldn't use any induction in an emergency situation other than, "I'm a pain control specialist. Do you want out of pain so the doctors can do their work?" Then, look into my eyes and pay attention to exactly what I say and exactly what I tell you to do and ignore everythinge else for a couple of minutes."

Greg M said:

Gate Control Theory, as I am given to understand it, is based upon the notion that the brain can only consciously process so much information at a given time, and the focal points of the input stream can be expanded when pain is involved in order to diffuse or even ignore the pain entirely.

When applying Gate Control hypnotically or with waking trance, you have a variety of highly adaptable choices available, any of which work quite well "on the fly." Here's a sample:

You can say "Look into my eyes; I am going to help you make the pain go way down now. Think about the way I am holding your hand" (take their hand, if it won't add to the pain). You then apply suggestions liberally to shift focus away from the pain. Right off the bat, you've diffused the pain signal on multiple fronts, you have your voice, your eyes, your touch, all distracting them from the immediate sensations of pain. You first affirm that they are feeling less pain (or at least there's a difference now, and the difference is better), and then apply suggestions relating to the affected area itself. These suggestions will vary according to the type and location of the pain, but their function is to allow the area to receive a touch from their own hand, both now and for use in the future (anchored), that diffuses the general signal from a few highly distressed neurons to a larger group of unstressed neurons that includes the original group in the same region of the body (touching the surrounding area directly is best whenever possible). The overall effect is that the brain feels far less pain because the batch of neurons being consciously 'felt' is large enough to drop the overall pain level as "sensed" by the person. (Formal induction is completely unnecessary in this case; just jump in and assume control of their pain trance.)

To help make the definition of Gate Control itself clearer, here's another example:
The dentist uses non-hypnotic Gate Control when they place a small hand vibrator against your cheek when they have to make the anaesthetic injection. (If your dentist does NOT do this, ask them why not.) You feel the vibrator as a non-painful stimulus that enlarges the size of the batch of neurons you're consciously processing from that region, and when they give you the needle, you either feel nothing at all or else it's so minimal, your mind scarcely notices (unless they hit bone, and even then, it's not nearly so bad as without.)

Bottom line, Gate Control means closing the gate on pain because the signal being processed is watered down with extra, non-distressed, signal being incorporated from the same region. Anchor it hypnotically, and any time it flares up, they can lay on their own hands, or employ the right visualization to produce the same effect.

Tracy Donegan said:

Hi Greg,

Can you tell me more about what you do with the gate control theory?

When working with someone in an emergency situation and in pain is there any need to do a rapid induction if they are already in a highly suggestive state?

Tracy

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