Building a Pain Control Dial

By: Adam Sargant

This hypnosis script assumes that the subject is already in a state of induced trance. It is intended for generic use in allowing the subject to realise greater control in managing specific, chronic pain. The script uses phonetic and syntactic ambiguity to create a mild confusional state, so will not read as a grammatically correct piece of prose.

In a profound state of relaxation, you can notice what you notice as you relax, still, further. And, relaxing, still further, can notice how you can perceive yourself in all sorts of new and exciting ways. You can wonder, for example, what it might be like to see your self as only you can see your outer and inner self. I don’t know just how you might make an inner sense of all this, but I do know that you clearly know ways of making that inner sense right now, so as you can clearly see yourself, all the inner experiences are clearly seen too. Allow your attention to wander to that area that has been experiencing the pain, you may give yourself the opportunity simply to notice just how you see that sense of pain, while you remember that pain is just a signal from the body to yourself telling you to be aware. This pain is neither good nor bad, but an important message you give yourself. And just as a message over a radio can be turned up and down while retaining its importance, so too you can learn new ways to attend to the signals your body sends you.

So, as you continue to relax still further, and continue to breathe in and out automatically, just notice how you relax further each time you breathe out that which you no longer need, and how you breathe in only that which is useful to you. And just as there is one you, in your mind you can create in image of this you as you too, one imagined and one imagining a picture of yourself. And I don’t know just how you see those areas of pain, but as you do, in a minute just imagine that they change in whatever way is needed to make them less intrusive. Just as with a radio dial, you can move the dial down from 5 to 4 and the sound gets just a little bit quieter and the sensation becomes just a little less intrusive as the way you picture these areas of pain changes, maybe in intensity, or brightness or colour. And as you move the dial from 4 to 3, the image changes so that as the numbers go down, the area simply becomes number still. As the dial moves from 3 to 2, and everything gets quieter, those sensations can become less and less intrusive, moving further into the background. And as you turn the dial from 2, to 1, just notice how your two you self can become clearer and moves more to the fore as those unwanted sensations move further back still. And you can ask yourself, what would happen if I move the dial all the way down to zero?

Pause

And this dial is one that can go with you, so that any time you need it, you can simply count down from 5, to 1, breathing in only that which is useful and breathing out all that you no longer need. With each number, the sensation simply becomes number for only as long as is useful to you at that time.

(at this stage the hypnotist can let the subject rest for a while, before bringing them out of trance with suggestions to reinforce the work already done).

This article was written by Adam Sargant, copyright 2005 and is to be found on the Hypnosis Audio CDs site.