RESEARCH ARTICLE


The Role of Suggestions in Hypnosis for Chronic Pain: A Review of the Literature



Tiara Dillworth*, Mark P. Jensen
University of Washington, Box 359612, 325 9th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104-2499, USA.

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2010
Volume: 3
First Page: 39
Last Page: 51
Publisher ID: TOPAINJ-3-39
DOI: 10.2174/1876386301003010039

Article History:

Received Date: 22/09/2009
Revision Received Date: 30/10/2009
Acceptance Date: 05/11/2009
Electronic publication date: 4/6/2010
Collection year: 2010

Article Metrics

CrossRef Citations:
29
Total Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 428
Abstract HTML Views: 1015
PDF Downloads: 592
Total Views/Downloads: 2035
Unique Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 251
Abstract HTML Views: 638
PDF Downloads: 437
Total Views/Downloads: 1326



Creative Commons License
© 2010 Dillworth and Jensen.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the University of Washington, Box 359612, 325 9th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104-2499, USA; Tel: 1-206-221-4079; Fax: 1-206-616-6278; E-mail: tiara@u.washington.edu


Abstract

Several controlled trials have demonstrated that hypnosis is an efficacious treatment for chronic pain. However, less attention has been given to the specific procedures and suggestions used in hypnotic treatments in research. The goal of this review was to address the issue of differences in the content of hypnotic suggestions, including pain management suggestions, non-pain related suggestions, and posthypnotic suggestions, in the context of published clinical trials of hypnosis for chronic pain management. This review focused on the types of suggestions used in twenty five studies comparing hypnosis to active treatments (e.g., relaxation, biofeedback), non-treatment control groups (e.g., standard care/wait-list control, supportive attention), or both in adult populations with various chronic pain conditions. Overall, these studies found hypnosis to be more effective than non-treatment control groups and similarly effective when compared to active treatments on pain-related outcomes when either pain-related suggestions or non-pain related suggestions were used. However, for studies that included both pain-specific and non-pain related suggestions, hypnosis was found to be superior to active treatments on a variety of pain-related outcomes.

Keywords: Hypnosis, Hypnotic Analgesia, Chronic pain.