Injury & Medical

doi: 10.4065/​80.4.511
Mayo Clinic Proceedings April 2005 vol. 80 no. 4 511-524

by James H. Stewart, MD

Abstract
Hypnosis became popular as a treatment for medical conditions in the late 1700s when effective pharmaceutical and surgical treatment options were limited. To determine whether hypnosis has a role in contemporary medicine, relevant trials and a few case reports are reviewed. Despite substantial variation in techniques among the numerous reports, patients treated with hypnosis experienced substantial benefits for many different medical conditions. An expanded role for hypnosis and a larger study of techniques appear to be indicated.

Read this article in PDF form, free, at the Mayo Clinic Proceedings web site, here. (If needed, Click the "PDF Free" link the right-side box).

The formation of a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) starts with the event developing. The event(s) can be positive or negative in content. The event may start out initially as a traumatic occurrence, but this is not an absolute requirement. The event may start out as pleasant, but conclude as traumatic.

First we need to understand what constitutes trauma. The definition of “trauma” that I offer is; When an event occurs that causes us physical and emotional pain that goes beyond our control. The events can be initiated by our environment, people and us.

In these traumatic events we receive pain from two sources. Physical pain is the most obvious source. This occurs from an impact to our physical self and results in bruising, bleeding, cuts, fracture sand tears to our body parts. The emotional pain can also be horrific pain. This comes to our emotions from being told negative information, being threatened, demeaning and derogatory words to describe us lead us to believe we are a bad person. As a result of this pain our memory implants this information as well as our Skelton-muscular system becomes imprinted with memory. All of the body’s resources are affected.

I have found a method quite by accident that works with the special needs child to promote independence and increased ability to achieve self control. This method utilizes stories with both familiar and unfamiliar characters. These stories promote independent play by providing coaching by cd. The cd’s help the child to play more independently and also to learn new coping strategies. Relaxing music with familiar nature sounds seems to help the children to learn better. It also increases creativity in the children by helping them to compose their own fantasy people to introduce to the therapist. Children both benefit and enjoy it because they are in trance easily and naturally and they enjoy cds with their name and familiar people in the stories. The children that I have helped by this method have gotten increased self esteem and self efficacy.
One child could not be alone and play for more than two minutes. Now, he comfortably plays for fifteen minutes. Both the coached play and the blend of both the familiar and the unfamiliar seem to help.

The reason hypnosis works to relieve a wide variety of mental and physical problems is that all physical and mental experiences and behaviors, whether they are conscious or unconscious, psychogenic or resulting from physical injury or illness, follow nerve transmissions in the brain.

Check out this article in the Telegraph (UK):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/telegraphchristmasappeal/4348791/Charity...

A quote from near the end of the article:

"In addition to the research into the causes of PTSD, new treatment is being developed, drawing on neurolinguistic programming, relaxation techniques and even Eye Movement Desensitisation Therapy..."

As hypnotherapists, we are needed where the healing & personal support is needed. We can help support the healing and treatment of PTSD by teaching sufferers self-hypnosis and deep relaxation as well as NLP techniques (if you have that training). Inductions for insomnia, depression and anxiety may be helpful in many cases.

The need is certainly great and growing. Check with the psychotherapists and physicians in your area to see if they would like a referral source for hypnotherapy, relaxation and (if you are qualified) NLP work around PTSD. And, of course, always seek a medical referral if you should get a walk-in client that wishes to work specifically to heal or manage PTSD.

President-elect Obama has a website to give ideas to his administration.
These ideas can be voted for or against by fellow citizens. The ideas that have the highest positive vote rates will be passed onto President-elect Obama for consideration. This is our opportunity to bring hypnotherapy into the mainstream!
Here's the link:
http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000...
Thanks,

Clay