Conversational Pain Relief

[phil]

"The real origin and essence of the hypnotic condition is the induction of a habit of abstraction or mental concentration, in which, as in reverie or spontaneous abstraction, the powers of the mind are so much engrossed with a single idea or train of thought, as, for the nonce, to render the individual unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, all other ideas, impressions, or trains of thought." [James Braid, 1852: 53-54]

"A state of special awareness characterized by a receptiveness to ideas" (Milton Erickson, Life Reframing in Hypnosis, Rossi/Ryan)

I was with a person yesterday who is in a lot of pain at the moment.

Watching them I considered that

a) chronic pain induces a trance by directing the attention repeatedly to a certain area of the body and

b) conditions the system to expect that pain and to predict it, even seeming to move slightly to induce a twinge of it, almost as if to be sure that it's still there.

I wondered whether a system so conditioned might 'miss'* such a pain if the physiological cause were to be removed. Can the system generate the missing pain to maintain a status quo? Related to this of course in the wider system is the notion of secondary gain that might be associated with having pain (attention, sympathy, etc).

* that is, experience 'news of difference'

I am wondering how to facilitate the person to a more comfortable experience. My gut feeling (given the patient and their symptoms, I can tell you that 'gut feeling' was an unintentional pun) had been to attempt to distract their attention. Either my attempts at this were weak or the physical symptoms were too powerful for distraction to work for long.

Then I realised that the client's WHOLE system's unconscious desired outcome must be being achieved in some way for this pain-containing system to be so stable so to attempt to distract one part of it would be to engage in a struggle with the system rather than to work with it.

Finally I remembered Erickson working with a terminal cancer patient with excruciating pain all over her body and how he facilitated her to end up with the most terrible itch in her foot that would not go away (and the pain in her body had gone).

The person I am referring to is cautious of formal structured personal work, yet I think they would be okay with an informal approach.

Assuming I can get their agreement to work with them informally, does anyone have experience of working with pain 'conversationally', as it were?

[Morris Taylor]

Yes. Several ways of doing it with clean questions. More if you combine with other ways of working CQ with other ways of working such as ideo-dynamics and formal logic.

[phil]

Hi Morris

Is there anything else about that, particularly the 'combination' with other approaches? I can imagine or guess at some CL questions one could use and I wonder if you - or anyone else - have any practical examples you can share?

[Angela]

Hi Phil,

I'm joining in as an expert in pain, not necessarily on how to use clean language conversationally to remove/alleviate it, although I am very keen to learn more and find ways that work.

So what I am saying might be to do with my map only, not pain in general.

I recently attended an EFT seminar, and wondered about adding clean language into that process. EFT works a bit like DIY acupuncture (no needles, just tapping) and some NLP type things. You focus on the pain, not away from it.

From practising this, I learnt that most of the time I manage my pain by 'being in my head' and not my body. So, when I think about a part of my body, I will notice the pain. So pressure, walking, being touched, etc are all things that cause me to connect with pain.

So my 'strategy' is to not think about my body at all and 'forget' I am in pain. Is that a long-term solution though?

I guess it is a bit like taking an aspirin, if you can conversationally ask clean language questions that take the person away from pain and toward their desire outcome (pain free? Relaxed? Relief? How do you get someone to tell you conversationally what they would like instead of that pain?) the pain may go temporarily. Still, often part of the trouble with chronic conditions is the all the medication, if this meant they needed fewer pain killers, etc it would all be for the better.

Angela

[Michael Leroux]

I often use a combination of EFT and clean language to help my clients.
a client story.
several years ago, a young lady walked into my office because her co-workers told her that she needed to see me before she handed in her papers to go on long term disability. 18 months prior she was involved in a car accident and as a result had severe back pain. using clean language I developed a symbol for her back pain "knife in back and something else". she wanted the knife out and was not able to define the "something else". usually at this point I use EFT with the symbol. so what happened was two rounds of EFT the knife was now smaller and out of her back and I returned to using clean language to continue maturing the change. She stated that she was a wimpy lady and the knife was now a useful tool to back up her "no". the "something else" was also gone. now typically when using EFT the symbol changes or leaves and a void remains. so using clean language and sometimes EFT is used to place a possitive symbol in that void. for this client it was a strong oak tree. now it's been my experience when using EFT with clean language the client often experience a translation and not a transformation. a week later the lady came in stating she was pain free for four days but when she visited her doctor, he told her her pain was real and no talking about it would remove it, so she return to my office in pain. now the symbol was a "strong oak tree" with the "something else" around the "stong oak tree". The "something else" was difficult to turn into a symbol. after another round of EFT she was able to define the "something else" as her anger/rage and hate towards God. Being a very religious lady she was not able to acknowledge that she had anger/rage and hate towards God for the accident. using clean language she was able to resolve that and use her knife to defend herself against taking on another person's believe system that she should still be in pain. Six months later she dropped in for coffee stating she was pain free.
I use a combination of EFT and clean language for headacke, migraines and back pain. I find the combination useful. I use EFT to give the symbol/metaphor a push and once it starts to change I return to clean language to continue the maturing process. so when I use EFT and clean language the therapy is problem focused and once the problem is changed it makes room to develop a desired outcome.

Michael Leroux

[Angela]

Hi Michael,

Wow! That sounds really amazing, I can see how EFT and clean language would work together.

Interesting the doctor saying that pain was real and no amount of talking could help...

Pain is a message is it not?

Pain is good when it stops us from doing something that would damage ourselves, ie. your leg is broken ad you need to rest it for the bones to mend. Chronic pain is different in that it stops you doing things that wouldn't harm your body, and in fact help perpetuate the problem? Is that right? It becomes a habit or a 'bind'?

Is pain your body's metaphor for something else?

What does anyone else have to say about pain / pain relief?

[Michael Leroux]

Greetings

regarding pain, the theory of Dr. John E. Sarno in "The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the body, Healing the pain" is useful. In a nutshell his theory is: 1. a physical injury happens, 2. the person has unresolved "rage" from something previous, 3. the unconscious wants the "rage" to be addressed, 4. to draw attention to the "rage" it attaches to the physical injury, 5. for healing to take place both the physical injury and "rage" need to be healed. 6. how the unconscious stops the physical healing is constricting the blood flow to the physcial injury (that's why massages, heat and chiropractic interventions works because for a short period of time they increase the blood flow),7.by addressing the "rage" the unconscious mind can then return to normal the blood flow to the physical injury resulting in it's healing.

Symbolic modelling is a great tool to identify and resolve the "rage" or whatever the issue may be, resulting in the unconscious mind restoring the blood flow to the physical injury. it's a useful theory for me. on a side note it's my understanding that Milton Erickson M.D. often used hypnosis to increase/decrease blood flow and increase or decrease nerve impulse for pain management.

Michael

Michael