Pain Control Strategies

Pain Control Strategies

hypochondriaCopyright © Donald Robertson, 2011.  All rights reserved.

This short article summarises some basic pain management strategies used in cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and related approaches, including some forms of hypnotherapy.  Common coping strategies, found effective by other people, can be classified in terms of a handful of broad categories, as follows,

Mental Imagery

  1. Imagining a pleasant scene, such as being in a garden or on a beach.  This can be seen as a form of distraction and requires a certain amount of concentration but most people are capable of doing it.  It works well as a means of coping with short-lived episodes of pain, although this technique may be difficult to do in situations where attention is required for other activities.
  2. Imagining a new context and meaning is a common strategy used by children, e.g., imagining being a spy or soldier shot in the arm when having an injection.  Building an imaginary story around the pain sensation to create a new meaning can be useful for adults too, though.
  3. Imagining the sensation transforming into another type of feeling, such as warmth, cold, pressure, etc.  A similar technique involves symbolising the sensation by imagining it as a shape or colour and transforming it into something else.

Relaxation

  1. Muscle relaxation is a common technique that’s usually achieved by first tensing groups of muscles for about 10-20 seconds before letting to and releasing the tension from them.
  2. Diaphragmatic breathing involves taking slow, deep breaths, using the abdomen rather than breathing from the chest.
  3. Self-hypnosis and autosuggestion are also common methods of relaxation, by means of focusing on relaxing verbal instructions or imagery.

Attention

  1. Focus on a different physical activity, sometimes called “behavioural distraction”, giving all of your attention to the task at hand.
  2. Focus on your environment, even if you’re not engaged in a task, becoming more aware of what your senses reveal in the here and now.
  3. Focus on a distracting mental activity, such as counting backwards from one hundred in steps of three, or solving a complicated puzzle.
  4. Accepting the sensation in a detached way, focusing on it rather than trying to distract yourself, and viewing it from a more impersonal perspective, e.g., by analysing it anatomically or imagining taking a step back from it or placing it outside of the body.

Leave a Reply