Hypnotic Pain Control for Healthcare Professionals February 2011

Recently, the LCCH presented an experiential one-day workshop entitled Pain Management Through Clinical Hypnosis at the inaugural collaborative conference held by the Association of Family Practitioners of Malaysia (AFPM) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). This oversubscribed workshop proved extremely popular to the 110 enthusiastic healthcare professionals who travelled from all over the world to attend. LCCH CEO and Director of Studies, Peter Mabbutt, introduced delegates to hypnotherapy and to the role that it has to play in the management of pain. Throughout the day many sceptics became ardent advocates of hypnotherapy as they came to the realisation that it can help improve patient care in their very busy medical practices. Delegates were awarded CPD points for attending the workshop.

Delegates at the Pain Management Through Clinical Hypnosis Workshop

The LCCH is pleased to announce that this popular workshop is once again going to be held in London on the 26th February 2011.

It is open to all healthcare professionals, therapists and professionals from other disciplines working in the field of pain management who wish to learn how hypnotherapy can be used to augment and enhance pain management.

A Demonstration of Glove Analgesia

With its hands-on approach delegates will both learn and experience basic hypnotic induction and deepening techniques along with common hypnotherapeutic approaches to pain management.

Practicing Glove Analgesia

Undoubtedly psychological factors are an important aspect of pain management that affect a person’s pain threshold. These are explored from the hypnotherapeutic perspective, as is the concept of secondary gain that can hinder effective pain management.

Delegates Practicing Self-hypnosis

The AFPM/RACGP conference and workshop afforded a great opportunity for the LCCH to introduce hypnotherapy to the many key players in medicine who were in attendance from the Asia-Pacific region. These included the Director General of the Malaysian Department of Health (the equivalent of the Minister for Health in the UK) and both heads of the AFPM and the RACGP, all of whom were enthusiastic in expressing a wish to work with the LCCH in expanding public awareness of hypnotherapy.

For further details of the workshop telephone the LCCH on 020 7402 9037 or email info@lcch.co.uk

www.lcch.co.uk

The colour of hypnotherapy: colour choice predicts response to IBS treatment

Studies show that approximately two thirds of people with IBS respond well to hypnotherapy. However, researchers from Manchester have looked into ways of making the intervention more time and cost-effective by seeing whether there is a way to predict who will be most likely to respond well to treatment using hypnotherapy. Based on previous studies showing that IBS patients respond better to hypnotherapy where colour images of their illness are used, they hypothesised that the relationship between colour and mood might be a predictor to therapeutic outcome.

 The researchers measured mood colour relationship using the Manchester Colour Wheel (MCW). This device has been validated to measure the positive, neutral and negative attributions of colour perception as it relates to mood. The study also measured a number of other parameters that included anxiety and depression levels using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HAD) and high, medium or low hypnotisability using the Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS).

 Looking at a cohort of 156 IBS patients they discovered that those who had a positive mood colour rating responded significantly better to hypnotherapy than those with a neutral or negative mood colour rating. Independent of the mood colour rating the researchers also found that those presenting with a high TAS score or a score of anxiety on the HAD also achieved significantly better outcomes.

Reference: Carruthers HR,  Morris J, Tarrier  N and Whorwell PJ (2010) Mood color choice helps to predict response to hypnotherapy in patients with irritable bowel syndrome BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 10 (1):75