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APA Psychotherapy Training Videos are intended solely for educational purposes for mental health professionals. Viewers are expected to treat confidential material found herein according to strict professional guidelines. Unauthorized viewing is prohibited.
In Hypnosis for Pain Control, Dr. David R. Patterson demonstrates this helpful therapeutic technique. Hypnosis is a powerful tool for helping clients to access personal resources to assist them in controlling pain. Although hypnosis can be used with chronic pain, in this context it is typically best used over a number of sessions in conjunction with psychotherapy. On the other hand, hypnosis for acute pain—typically from medical procedures such as surgery, trauma, or child birth—may be beneficial even if used in a single session. In this session, Dr. Patterson works with a woman with a rare form of cancer who has a tumor on her spine that causes burning, stabbing pain, interfering with her sleep. Dr. Patterson first educates the client about hypnosis, then takes her through an induction that gives her access to internal resources that help her to feel less pain and greater comfort.
In describing his approach to hypnosis, Dr. Patterson emphasizes first that he believes hypnosis should be fit into the context of a larger theoretical approach when used for patient care. A meta-analysis by Kirsch, Montgomery, and colleagues (1993) indicated that hypnosis can increase the effect size when used in combination with a variety of psychotherapeutic approaches. For complex psychological issues, hypnosis is seldom useful as a treatment by itself. Whether the therapist is using psychodynamic, cognitive–behavioral, behavioral, or interpersonal approaches to psychotherapy, hypnosis should be grounded in a thorough conceptualization of the clinical problem.
David R. Patterson, PhD, ABPP, is a professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Surgery, and Psychology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He holds diplomate degrees in the areas of hypnosis and rehabilitation medicine. Dr. Patterson has been at the University of Washington for 20 years, and has worked primarily at Harborview Medical Center, a Level 1 trauma hospital that serves the entire northwest region of the United States. Much of his clinical and theoretical work has been done at the University of Washington Burn Unit. Dr. Patterson's interest in clinical hypnosis grew largely out of developing innovative methods to reduce pain during burn wound debridement. He found that hypnosis was highly effective for treating acute pain, and that it also fit in well with the fast-paced environment of the trauma center. After seeing dramatic successes with hypnosis clinically, Dr. Patterson applied to the National Institutes of Health to fund randomized clinical trials in this area. He was funded in 1989 by NIH, and his current funding is projected to last until at least 2011. Dr. Patterson has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and many of them have focused on pain control and hypnosis. His most notable papers include a review on the use of hypnosis published in Psychological Bulletin in 2003, two articles published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology on hypnosis for burn pain, and a recent paper on combining the use of virtual reality in conjunction with hypnosis published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
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