Lessons learned from a somatic treatment session that significantly reduced severe chronic hip and leg pain

by Erik Peper, PhD, and Annette Booiman, MRT

After experiencing your guided exercises on the gym floor, I slept comfortably and without any pain for the first time in four years. This morning when I went grocery shopping, I could walk straight with a normal stride and again without pain. I feel great. --Paul Maassen

The rapid successful resolution of pain occurred as the result of a spontaneous teaching moment with a person in the gym. This success is not just a case of magical/spontaneous healing but the integration of multiple factors that promote healing and underlie somatic awareness practices and successful biofeedback training. In this clinical note, we describe how the educational treatment began, the educational/clinical coaching sequence, and factors that therapists may want to consider in their treatment.

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An argument for the significance of a qualitative research approach to hypnotic experiencing and a perceptually oriented view of hypnosis is presented with hypnosis framed in phenomenological, humanistic, and perceptual terms. An outline of threads of thought in Popper's writings are consistent with such a perspective. Qualitative approaches are noted and support for theoretical discussions leading to deeper understanding of issues of hypnotic experiencing, such as unconscious processes, nonlinear experiences, and researchers' countertransference are examined. Some limitations of current quantitative approaches to examining hypnotic experiencing and myths about qualitative research are discussed.

Psychol Rep. 2004 Jun;94(3 Pt 1):955-66. Woodard FJ. Woodard Hypnosis and Research, Inc., Milford, New Hampshire, USA.