Mission

Our mission at Hypno Practique is to significantly reduce and manage emotional, psychological, and physical symptoms; for an effective Pain Management and Trauma Recovery. We strive to achieve results with the implementation of hypnotherapy and the incredible mind-body connection.

What is Pain?

The International Association for the Study of Pains widely used definition states:

“Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage pr described in terms of such damage.”

Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future. Most pain will resolve promptly once the body has healed or is healing, but sometimes pain persists despite the removal of any stimulus and/or apparent healing of the body. And sometimes pain may arise in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease.

Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation in the United States. It is a major symptom in many medical conditions and can significantly interfere with a person’s quality of life and general functioning. It is widely accepted that psychological factors such as social support, hypnotic suggestion, excitement, or distraction can significantly modulate pain’s intensity or unpleasantness.

Psychogenic pain, also called psychalgia, is physical pain that is caused, increased, or prolonged by mental, emotional, or behavioral factors. It may also be termed a somatoform disorder.

Headache, back pain, or stomach pain are some of the most common types of psychogenic pain. It may occur is persons with a mental disorder such as depression, anxiety or borderline personality disorder. More commonly in the general population it accompanies or is induced by anger, social rejection, broken heart, abandonment, grief, or other such emotional events.

Sufferers are often stigmatized because both medical professionals and the general public tend to think that pain from psychological source is not “real.” However, specialists consider that it is no less actual or hurtful than pain from other sources.

The International Association for the Study also notes the following can be found about pain that happens for psychological reasons:

“Many people report pain in the absence of tissue damage or any likely pathophysiological cause; usually this happens for psychological reasons. There is usually no way to distinguish their experience from that due to tissue damage if we take the subjective report. If they regard their experience as pain and it they report it in the same ways as pain caused by tissue damage, it should be accepted as pain.”

Medicine refers also to psychogenic pain or psychalgia as a form of chronic pain under the name of persistent somatoform pain disorder of functional pain syndrome. Many causes may be linked to stress, unexpressed emotional conflicts, or psychological problems. Some specialists believe that psychogenic chronic pain exists as a protective distraction to keep dangerous repressed emotions such as anger or rage unresolved in the unconscious. In other words, the focus on the pain distracts us from dealing with the emotion buried beneath it.

Important Note: Pain is an indication of some form of dysfunction and MUST be medically evaluated before you begin therapy. Due the hypnotherapy’s scope of practice, it is mandatory that I obtain a referral from a medical doctor before beginning any pain management with a client.

In addition I always work as an adjunct to the medical doctors prescribed treatment plan. And I NEVER go against the doctors recommendations such as medication or other therapeutic treatments. Hypnotherapy for Pain Management may help improve the symptoms of pain, but it is NOT a remedy or cure. And is therefore not intended to be a substitution for conventional treatment, but a complimentary adjunct to it.

Additionally, mental health disorders are outside the scope of a Hypnotherapist’s practice and cannot be treated without first obtaining a referral from a licensed mental health care professional. Even with a referral, Mental Health and/or Psychotic Disorders that cause Psychosis, Delusions, Psychotic Thinking, or Hallucinations should NOT include Hypnotherapy as part of the treatment plan.

The use of hypnosis is contraindicated in all psychotic disorders due to a potential risk of symptomatic exacerbation. It is not advisable for people with Borderline Personality Disorder either. As it can also exacerbate symptoms, features, and traits within the personality disorder. The preferred therapy for the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder is through a licensed mental health care provider specializing in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Talk Therapy.

What is Acute Pain?

Acute pain begins suddenly and is usually sharp in its quality. It serves as a warning of disease or a threat to the body. Acute pain might be caused by many events of circumstances, including:

Surgery
Broken Bones
Dental Issues
Burns or Cuts
Labor and Childbirth

Acute pain might be mild and last just a moment, or it might be severe and last for weeks or months. In most cases, acute pain does not last longer than six months, and it disappears when the underlying cause of pain has been treated or has healed. Unrelieved acute pain, however, might lead to chronic pain.

Acute pain is treated by usually creating distraction or by inducing glove anesthesia to numb the affected area. In some cases, we will do both. We also will be treating the anticipatory anxiety with desensitization when there is a painful event that is coming in the future.

What is Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain persists despite the fact that the injury has healed. Pain signals remain active in the nervous system for weeks, months, or years. Physical effects include tense muscles, limited mobility, a lack of energy, and changes in appetite. Emotional effects include depression, anger, anxiety, and fear or re-injury. Such a fear might hinder a person’s ability to return to normal work or leisure activities, reinforcing the cycle of pain.

Common Chronic Pain Complaints Include:

Headache
Low Back Pain
Cancer Pain
Arthritis Pain
Neurogenic Pain (Pain resulting from damage to nerves)
Psychogenic Pain (Pain not due to past disease or injury or any visible sign of damage inside)

Chronic pain might have originated with an initial trauma/injury or infection, or there might be an ongoing cause of pain. However, some people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of body damage.

Chronic pain is treated by usually a combination of possible factors that are determined during the evaluation. With chronic pain we are often dealing with repressed emotions that need to be processed or changed regarding some aspect or aspects of the client’s life.

Anger and fear are two of the most common emotions that are implicated in the chronic condition when it is not purely a physical issue. We must try to shore up the foundations of one’s life often as we are working on the cause of the chronic pain. These would include sleep, nutrition, stress management, strengthening self-esteem, and the positive quality of our thinking/thoughts.

Usually we are working both on a symptomatic level and looking for the cause to resolve itself.

(Pain References: Cited from John Melton, CCHt; www.johnmelton.com – AHA Class of Hypnosis and Pain Management Specialization; wwwhypnosis.edu/aha/certification/hypnosis-and-pain-management)

What is Trauma?

Trauma

1a : an injury (as a wound) to living tissue caused by an extrinsic agent b : a disordered psychis or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury c : an emotional upset

DSM-V (Trauma)

Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one (or more) of the following ways: (1) Directly experiencing the traumatic event(s); (2) witnessing, in person, the event(s) as it occurred to others; (3) learning that the traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member of friend, the event(s) must have been violent or accidental; (4) experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to adverse details of the traumatic event(s) (e.g. first responders collecting human remains; police officers repeatedly exposed to details of child abuse)

*Any physical, verbal, emotional, or energetic loss of integrity of the whole self

Important Note: Trauma may fall outside the scope of a Hypnotherapist’s practice without medical or psychological referral. Therefore, if the trauma has a physical or medical ideology; the client MUST be medically evaluated before you begin therapy. Due the hypnotherapy’s scope of practice, it is mandatory that I obtain a referral from a medical doctor before beginning any pain management with a client.

If the presenting issue of trauma is in connection to an emotional or psychological correlation, such as PTSD or C-PTSD, the client MUST be evaluated by a mental health care professional before you begin therapy and obtain a referral from their mental health care provider authorizing Hypnotherapy as an adjunct treatment plan to their prescribed treatment plan.

What is Recovery?

Recovery

“act or righting oneself after a blunder, mishap, etc.” is from 1520s. 1. an act of recovering. 2. the regaining of or possibility or regaining something lost or taken away. 3. restoration or return to health from sickness 4. restoration or return to any former and better state or condition. 5. time required for recovering. 6. something that is gained in recovering. 7. an improvement in the economy marking the end of a recession or decline. 8. the regaining of substances in usable form, as from refuse material or waste products. 9. Law. the obtaining of right to something by verdict or judgment of a court of law. 10. Football. an act or instance of recovering a fumble. 11. Fencing. the movement to the position of guard after a lunge. 12. Rowing. a return to a former position for making the next stroke.

Varieties of Trauma

In Utero Harm

Malnourishment
Toxic Exposure: Tobacco, Alcohol, Drugs, etc.
Physical Trauma
Surgical Trauma

Perinatal Trauma

Pre-term underdevelopment
Stress
Physical distress
Depravation

Childhood Trauma

ACE – Adverse Childhood Experiences
Neglect
Isolation
Verbal Violence
Physical Violence
Sexual Violence
Physical Trauma

Physical Trauma

Abrasion
Contusion
Laceration
Fracture
Blunt Force
Burn
Repetitive Stress
Amputation
Spinal Cord Injury
Complex Regional Pain
Blindness/Deafness
Dental Work
Surgical Trauma
Assault
Sexual Violation
Motor Vehicle Accident
Combat Injury
Torture
Degeneration
Pathology (Infection, Immune Disorder, Organ Failure)
Hospitalization

Psycho-Emotional Trauma

Neglect
Passive Verbal Assault
Direct Verbal Assault
Underperformance
Isolation
Restraint
War
Dispossession
Denial of Suffering
Financial Loss

Societal

Death of loved one
Broken Family Relationship
Loss of job or position
Rejection from “clan”
Forced Emigration
Displacement
Genocide

Severe Trauma

Traumatic Distress

Real or perceived risk of death
Witnessing violent or untimely death
Persistent restrictive conditions (capacity)

Pathological Traumatic Distress (PTSD)

Enduring disruptive thoughts, feelings, and actions
Substance abuse
Rage
Abuse of others

Trauma Recovery Hypnosis in History

Trauma recovery has been an important element of hypnosis and trance-work throughout human history. Lodge and shamanic rites helped bridge the visible and invisible world to restore the lost or broken parts of a person. Perhaps the most noted of these methods is “soul retrieval”, restoring a part of a person that has become lost in time-space.

In 1780 Antom Mesmer theorized that Functional Disorders (somatoform) arose in individuals when they experience obstruction in the flow of “fluidum”, a vital cosmic energy that supported health. He discovered that the magnetic influence of the practitioner helped to resore proper flow. In many cases, this restoration resulted in dramatic convulsive movement called “Cathartic Healing Crisis”. Modern science frames the action as the release of energy “frozen” within the mind-body.

In 1862 Jean Charcot, working at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, began treating women suffering from convulsion. He discovered that through hypnosis he could actually manifest the symptoms of epileptic seizure, including amnesia, and paralysis. He postulated that such conditions could be created through hysterical causes such as psychic trauma and expressed the existence of a “fixed idea” as the root of neurosis. He discovered that in traumatic or hysterical cases he could use hypnosis to take a person back through time to the onset of the trauma. By allowing the individual to talk about the experience in hypnosis, he found that the hysterical symptoms would often be released. He called his method “The Talking Cure.”

The work continued to influence such investigators as Bernheim, Leibealt, and Janet, who recognized dissociation as a factor in both hypnosis and trauma. Through the case history of Anna O., Bruer and Freud found that by systematically taking the patient back through time to the first occurrence of symptoms from a traumatic event, a resolve could be affected.

In addition to its continued us in both medical and psychological trauma recovery, hypnotherapy has been employed since the First World War as a means to help desensitize and restore individuals who have been greatly injured psychologically by war. Known as Shell Shock, Battle Fatigue, and currently Combat Stress or Combat Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, hypnosis remains a stand-out in cognitive or mind-body interventions.

(Trauma References, Cited from Timothy L. Trujillo; www.timothytrujillo.com – AHA Class on Hypnosis and Trauma Recovery Specialization, www.hypnosis.edu/aha/certification/trauma-recovery-hypnosis)

Hypno Practique