Hypnotically Assisted Surgical Anesthesia: Hypnosis in The Operating Room
Hypnosis has been used as an adjunct to surgical procedures
for at least two hundred years. Its greatest use in its
early years was for surgical anesthesia, because it was
developed before the discovery of ether. It is still widely
used for this purpose as an addition to or substitute for
chemical anesthesia in many surgical procedures because it is
completely non-toxic and shows excellent results for the
hypnotizable subject.
The greatest limit to its use in today’s surgery is the lack
of education by hospital personnel in its use, and their
resulting failure to recommend its use for patients. There
are also too few hypnotherapists with specific training and
experience in this field. This article is one among many
being published today that is helping to bridge the gap in
the knowledge of health care professionals and patients of
this important subject.
For starters, few patients are aware of the broad range of
benefits that hypnosis can provide for surgical patients, so
I will begin by listing these benefits, followed by a
discussion of a few of the ways hypnotherapists can achieve
these benefits with their clients:
• Enhanced surgical anesthesia means much less toxic
anesthetics in the client’s body, thus reduced mortality
(complications of anesthesia are a major source of surgical
mortality) and quicker recovery
• Reduced pre-operative anxiety
• Reduced blood flow to the area of the operation during the
surgical procedure means less blood loss and quicker recovery
• Reduced postoperative pain
• Speeding up the post surgical healing process, including
tissue and bone healing
• Reducing the chance of infection and other post-surgical
complications
So how does a hypnotherapist help surgical patients
accomplish these goals? First, the hypnotist needs to
familiarize the patient with the hypnotic state, and induce
trance several times, so the client can readily enter this
altered state. While some people are much more hypnotizable
than others, it is my experience that almost anyone can learn
to experience the blissful state of relaxation that is
hypnosis with sufficient practice. More important than the
hypnotist’s training is the degree of trust and rapport that
exists between hypnotist and client, and the therapist’s
patience in helping the client reach a hypnotic state.
If you are a surgical patient contemplating using a
hypnotherapist, you should trust your FEELINGS about this
person as well as asking about their training and experience.
The best hypnotherapists are not necessarily physicians or
nurses, most of whom have little training in this field. For
a good practitioner, you can contact the American Council of
Hypnotist’s Examiners, or ACHE. http://www.ache.org/
We then need to use specific suggestions to help the client
achieve this state in three arenas. First, they need to
learn to access this state while lying in bed at night, when
they will practice going through the surgical procedure.
(”Now, every time you are lying in bed at night, you go deep
into this state…”) Second, they will be trained to enter
this state while entering the operating room and to remain in
this state throughout the procedure. (”Now, when you lie on
the gurney, and you feel its vibrations under your body, you
automatically go deep…”) And thirdly, we prepare the client
to access this state while lying in the recovery room and/or
their own bedroom to activate the recovery suggestions.
The way Alchemical hypnotherapists work with clients is to
train them to use all of these processes every day in the
quietness of their own beds. A hypnosis tape or CD custom
made for the client can be very helpful here, as is our
generic tape, Most of my clients are excited about being
able to take personal responsibility for maximizing the
results of their surgery, so are eager to do this homework,
which is easy and relaxing.
The next important step is to help the client clear up the
mental and emotional causes, in the subconscious mind, of the
condition that requires surgery. This will do a great deal
to prevent reoccurrence of this condition, as well as speed
recovery. Addressing the underlying cause of the disease or
injury is necessary. This can sometimes be done in one
session, but for a chronic disease like cancer may require a
number of sessions to clear. Regardless of the time
involved, it is always worth it to prevent the heartbreak of
symptoms returning, as they often do, within a few months or
years of surgery.
Next, I need the most exact knowledge possible of the
procedure to be followed in surgery. I have been quite
pleased with the willingness of doctors in my practice to
provide their patients with this detailed information. I use
this data to help the client’s body to rehearse all of the
steps of the operation in trance. This mental rehearsal
includes the tissues of the body surrendering easily to the
incision, closing blood vessels in the area of the incisions,
and directing the nervous system to eliminate pain signals
during the procedure thus reducing the need for chemical
anesthesia.
I also direct the body and subconscious mind of the client to
relax and trust the skill of their physician. This is
assuming of course that the patient has done their own
research in finding a competent surgeon for this procedure.
(Not just the cheapest your HMO can find!) I recommend a
minimum of two sessions devoted to this mental rehearsal.
During this rehearsal I also train the client’s subconscious
mind to use the color healing and spiritual surgery methods
outlined in an article on Somatic Healing.
One of my favorite techniques is to lead the client in
hypnosis to their “inner healer”, an inner helper/guide
specifically called upon to assist the hands of the surgeon
in performing the operation, as well as assisting in
pre-surgical processes like cutting off blood supply to a
tumor, and such post-surgical tasks as eliminating scar
tissue, preventing infection with a healing salve, and other
tasks.
One client whose body was rejecting her newly acquired kidney
in spite of massive immunosuppressive drug therapy, found her
inner healer spreading a soothing balm on the surface of her
new kidney that signaled to her immune system, “This part is
mine!” The results: her body stopped its rejection response,
and she could stop taking the immunosuppressive drugs.
She still has that kidney ten years later. This use of the
inner healer is a unique feature of the Alchemical approach
to surgery. This inner guide may be introduced as a
“metaphor for the body’s own wisdom” to the skeptical client.
The deeply religious client can call in Jesus or their
favorite saint to perform this function. Either way, it
works.
I then assist the client in post-surgical recovery. A
detailed knowledge of how recovery is to progress is
essential here. After having the patient picture themselves
in the recovery room and their own bedroom post surgery, I
give specific directions to the body. These include
suggestions that your nerves, knowing that healing is
proceeding beautifully, cut off all pain signals except those
that are essential for the client’s recovery. For example, I
suggest that if the client moves too suddenly in bed,
disturbing the wound, a shooting pain will be felt at once.
Otherwise the patient will experience remarkably little pain
in the critical days after surgery. A reduction in pain
medication also reduces the chances of mental impairment and
physical dependency that are common with large doses of pain
killing drugs. Also, I suggest that when the blood vessels
in the area are restored they bring in a plentiful supply of
blood borne nutrients to the area to speed healing. Various
images can be used to help the client’s body heal more
quickly, depending on the client’s needs, including the
surgical opening being sewed together for a seamstress, or
the garden of your post-operative stomach growing beautiful
new green shoots for a gardener.
Training the client to call upon the inner healer every night
in bed to continue the healing process in a painless and easy
way can also be helpful. For example, I suggest the inner
healer can scrub the area of a cancer surgery every night to
eliminate the loose cancers cells which might otherwise cause
a return of tumors to that area or elsewhere in the body. In
general, I avoid technical terms like “metastasizing” in
favor of simple expressions like “scrub clean.” This is
because the subconscious mind responds best to simple easily
understood images.
A final cautionary note for all patients of surgery: under
hypnotic anesthesia the patient is in a highly suggestible
hypnotic state. Your surgical staff should all be aware or
this and make sure their conversations over your body during
surgery are of a positive outcome. If possible, having your
hypnotist present for the operation to use suggestions during
the actual operation is a plus. If not, make sure someone on
staff monitors the words spoken to keep them positive. Many
clients find it useful to play their hypnotic tape during
surgery over headphones. This performs the task of further
embedding positive imagery while eliminating the voices of
the surgical team.
Copyright © David Quigley CHT
|
About Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis: America’s oldest |
