The Effects of Hypnotic Suggestion on Pain Report

Abstract

Forty-five highly susceptible volunteers rated a series of shocks using 32 pain descriptors. Descriptors were given numerical values using magnitude estimation procedures. We assigned the subjects to one of three conditions, analgesia suggestion, relaxation suggestion, or no suggestion. All subjects were administered the shocks and the suggestion appropriate to the group, in both the waking and hypnotic state. The results support the existence of two dimensions of pain which are differentially responsive to suggestion. Hypnotic-analgesia suggestion altered subjects' perceptions of the intensity without changing their perceptions of the unpleasantness of the shocks. Hypnotic-relaxation suggestion reduced the unpleasantness but not the perceived intensity of the stimuli. These findings imply that research into hypnotic pain relief is more easily interpreted if pain is viewed as multidimensional in nature.

Hypnosis increases heat detection and heat pain thresholds in healthy volunteers☆

“…Hypnotic-analgesia suggestion is prone to reduce pain intensity, whereas hypnoticrelaxation suggestion is more susceptible to reducing unpleasantness. 24 In the current study, a suggestion of anesthesia of the hand relies more on the pain sensation and intensity than on the pain affect. Thus, the evidence of a discrepancy in the results of other studies concerning the respective reduction in pain-related unpleasantness and intensity could be related to different types of hypnotic suggestions, and emphasizes the importance of the hypnotic content.…”

“…Nevertheless, the effect of suggestion is weaker in awake volunteers than it is during hypnosis. 24 A further development of hypnotic analgesia analysis was to assess the differential effects of hypnosis on the sensory and affective components of pain. Heat stimuli may produce pain with a relatively low affective component, but heat pain tolerance is more likely related to unpleasantness than to intensity.…”

Hypnotic Susceptibility and Experimental Pain Reduction

“…The results of independent-groups-design experiments have consistently failed to find significant differences in pain reduction between subjects receiving or not receiving a hypnotic induction prior to a painreduction suggestion (e.g., Barber & Hahn, 1962;Evans & Paul, 1970;Spanos, Barber, & Lang, 1974;Spanos, Kennedy, & Gwynn, 1984;Spanos et aI., 1979;Starn & Spanos, 1980). Conversely, repeatedmeasures-design experiments have consistently found that a hypnotic induction significantly facilitates pain reduction (e.g., Hilgard et aI., 1978;Malone, Kurtz, & Strube, 1989;Stacher et aI., 1975).…”

“…To control for the possibility of expectations being conveyed to high-susceptibility subjects by the experimenter in repeated-measures-design studies, some investigators have randomized the order of conditions (e.g., Malone, Kurtz, & Strube, 1989;Stacher et aI., 1975), so that all subjects were equally likely to receive a waking or hypnotic suggestion first. Malone et al went on to examine the possibility of whether groups differed on the basis of having received a hypnotic or waking suggestion first.…”

Avaliação psicofísica da percepção de dor

“…Estas escalas têm sido dissociadas após a administração de uma combinação de fentanil e diazepan (Gracely, Dubner & McGrath, 1982), após a administração de naloxone (Hargreaves et al, 1986) e após intervenções não farmacológicas para controle da dor, tais como meditação (Gaughan, Gracely, & Friedman, 1990), hipnose (Malone, Kurts, & Strube, 1989) e acupuntura (Price, Rafii, Watkins, & Buckingham, 1984).…”