THE BEST-KEPT SECRET IN MEDICINE

Today we know much more about how the brain processes information and how the body responds to thought.  Everyone has access to natural anesthesia.  In fact, the phenomenon has been so well-studied that we now have a variety of protocols for reliably producing local anesthesia.  Many have been documented repeatedly over the last century.  And yet, even though the risks of anesthetic drugs are known, people remain both fearful and skeptical of hypnotic phenomena.  Why?

Because people experience pain as a very real phenomenon produced by some event or condition that appears to be beyond their control.  Since they do not want the pain, but they definitely have it, the only logical explanation is that it’s not avoidable.  And while it’s true that the event or condition may be unavoidable, the experience of the pain is not in the body.  It’s in the mind. 

Whoa.  Back up for a second.  I said the experience of the pain is in the mind.  

The pain signal may originate in the body, generally as a warning that something in the body needs our attention.  But that signal is interpreted in the mind.  It must be given a meaning in order to capture our attention.  Otherwise, it would just be random noise and we’d ignore it the same way we ignore other data we perceive as meaningless.  Once we understand the positive intention of the signal, and take steps toward correcting the condition, we are free to release the experience of pain. 

People always give me “the look” when I tell them that hypnoanesthesia is a simple process that permits painless childbirth, tooth extractions, and even surgery.  But you don’t have to believe me.  You can go on YouTube and watch dozens of videos of people undergoing surgery, dental work, and childbirth using self-hypnosis to produce their own local anesthetic.  Once you have learned to enter trance states simply by “flipping a switch,” you’re only a half step away from flipping another switch that turns off the transmission of pain signals to the mind, where they are interpreted and experienced. 

British hypnotist Derren Brown is famous for pulling people out of the audience and anesthetizing one of their hands in a matter of seconds.  The subject then runs a large bore hypodermic needle through their own hand, with no pain and no bleeding.  Don’t believe me?  Go watch.  He’s not alone in this performance.  Many stage hypnotists have done the same.  There’s nothing special about the selected audience members, other than that they’ve already displayed notable signs of trance and/or responded to embedded commands.  They are already halfway there.  That doesn’t mean that the rest of the audience can’t get there as well.  It just means that the hypnotist’s job is going to go much quicker and really look like magic if he selects one of those who are already halfway to goal. 

But it’s not magic.  Hypnotists are simply using a set of principles that describe in broad strokes how the human mind stores, codes, interprets, and retrieves data.  On stage, we may use those principles to make ourselves appear nearly superhuman.  In the office we use those same principles to help clients achieve rapid change.  But the change happens entirely in that person’s mind.  The person making the change is NOT the hypnotist.  The hypnotist can point to the gate, but it’s the subject who decides whether or not to walk through it.  It’s the subject who makes the change.  It’s the subject who has all of those experiences.  And they have those experiences in the mind; the same place where physical pain signals are coded, stored, interpreted, and retrieved. 

Here in the west there’s a growing trend to reinvestigate the possibilities, both for surgical purposes and in acute care.  The use of hypnosis by first responders and ER personnel has already begun.  EMTs are better able to control bleeding and shock, as well as ease the fear and pain experienced by patients en route to the emergency room.  But anyone can develop those self-care skills with just a few weeks of daily practice in a structured program.