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Pain
Management
Pain
comes in all shapes, sizes, forms, intensities, and
causes that are imaginable. Pain is both physical
and emotional. It can be as small as muscle aches,
to an intense and debilitating pain. It can keep the
quality of life at bay. Though we can’t always
“cure” (we don’t cure anyone) pain, we can
ease it up quite a bit, or get rid of it forever.
Taking a fibromyalgia client from say on a scale
from 1-10, from a 7 to a 3 is an almost miracle for
them. What a wonderful tool we have. The only
unfortunate thing is that they usually use a
Hypnotherapist as a last resort.
It
is very important when working with pain that your
client has seen a doctor first. Pain is a warning
signal that something is wrong. We want to make sure
it isn’t something serious. If they have already
seen a doctor I ask them to let their doctor know
that they are working with a hypnotherapist for two
reasons. We want to make sure we are not interfering
with a serious medical problem and two, if an almost
miracle happens, we want the doctor to know it was
hypnotherapy. They are one of our biggest skeptics.
Never
suggest taking away medications of any kind. If they
feel they can change or get rid of medications they must talk to their doctor
about it. We don’t diagnose anything or recommend
taking or going off of anything.
Secondary Gain:
(Social
or financial incentives)
If
the secondary gain is strong enough we may not be
able to help our client at all or only temporarily.
For instance, if the client is getting out of going
to a job they hate and are getting financial
assistance. Or, if someone is lonesome and people
are all of a sudden coming over and caring for them
in some way or another. These are very strong unconscious
incentives. These incentives are usually uncovered
during regression or ego state therapy, sometimes
even during your intake. Secondary gain must be
uncovered to ensure long term success. You may find
this out the first session or it may take several.
Rapport:
Unfortunately
someone may have told your client somewhere along
the line that their pain is in their head or that
they have to live with it. Acknowledge your
client’s pain with a sympathetic attitude, and
genuine caring. Listen to them with a deep interest
to help create a confidence that they can be helped
with their pain. We are in this 100% with them.
Some
of the approaches we use are:
-
Object
Imagery
-
Dissociation
-
Glove
Anesthesia
-
Pain
Transference
-
Guided
Imagery
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