Hypnosis and pain: current and perspective knowledge.

After further controversies, the definition of hypnosis is to be at the same time a modified state of consciousness and a particular intersubjective relation between a practitioner and his patient. In a synthetic way, we can say that mechanisms of hypnosis on acute pain are now well known, and its efficiency is particularly proved in the pain provoked by the care. On the other hand, the knowledge concerning the action of the hypnosis on chronic pain is much more complex to understand. If the hypnosis allows connoting differently pain and to decrease its implication in patient's life, otherWise the long-term reorganizations of hypnosis on chronic pain are still for the study. In practice, the field which his particularly in development is the analogical processes of the speech, because they are particularly present in pain medicine, and easy to use in hypnotic method.

Rev Med Suisse. 2012 Jun 27;8(347):1399-400, 1402-3. Bioy A. Centre de prise en charge des douleurs et des soins palliatifs du CHU Bicêtre, Institut français d'hypnose Centre de recherches et de formation, Paris. antoine.bioy@u-bourgogne.fr