I just saw a show on
TLC about
hypnosis and thought it was very interesting. Part of the show discussed the usefullness of hypnosis as a form of
pain control, and even
emergency medical treatment. One woman in the show, through the power of
suggestion, was able to endure an entire surgical procedure (I'm not sure what the surgery was exactly but it looked complicated, might have been knee surgery) without any form of
anesthetic. She was completely
conscious through the whole thing and her facial expression was very
calm.
There was also mention of hypnosis for emergency medical treatment, especially for
burns. It suggests that a badly burned person could be given suggestions by a
hypnotist on his/her way to other emergency treatments. Since a person who has experienced an intense
trauma is already in a semi-hypnotized
state these suggestions are made fairly easily. The results of the suggestion are quite remarkable. The patient has a much higher probability of not going into
shock (because they are calmed by the
hypnosis) and they actually feel much less pain than expected in their condition. The hypnosis also produces some more physical effects; there is a dramatic reduction in the ammount of
swelling and
tissue damage of the burn victim.
While treatments like hypnosis aren't really taken seriously in the
West, I hope that with more cases like this, where hypnosis produces obvious and extroardinary results, it will catch on and gain more
credit.