Hypnotic anasthesia

Some practitioners report that, even in the light stages of hypnosis, pains of headache, neuritis, etc., have been relieved. After the subject has been placed under hypnosis, gently stroke the affected part and say, "The pain is passing—it is going—now you have no pain—when you wake you will be conscious of no pain—the pain is now completely gone—now, when I count three, wake up—and remember—there will be no pain—one—two—three—wake up—now you feel better."

In the deeper stages of hypnosis an advanced condition of analgesia can be induced. You may have seen one of my public demonstrations in which needles are pressed into the outstretched palm of a hypnotised subject with complete absence of pain. Hypnotism as an anaesthetic in surgery has been employed successfully by many physicians in France, Germany, Russia and U.S.A., in cases of childbirth among others. In India, Dr. Esdaile performed several hundred operations with hypnosis as the only anaesthetic. Doubtless, hypnosis would to-day be very widely used in anaesthesia were it not for the development and use of more easily administered and highly effective modern methods of anaesthesia. Because of these developments, it is doubtful if hypnotism will find any wide use in surgery; it is too much like taking a shotgun to kill a fly. It can only be used in deep hypnosis after the patient has been hypnotised a number of times, and tested with needle insertions to ensure the degree of analgesia which has been induced. Its chief application as an anaesthetic is in minor surgery and with patients who fear, or for any reason cannot take, the usual anaesthetics.

Many anaesthetists in the U.S.A., however, are trained to offer simple hypnotic suggestions with the anaesthetic, in such words as "You're going to be all right—you're going to be well", which is particularly valuable for inducing a state of well-being in the patient on waking after the operation. Just at the very moment the patient goes under is the most valuable time to reach his subconscious mind.

Hypnotic anasthesia