Can hypnosis be used to reduce pain and/or suffering from illness ?
Pain is a warning that something is wrong with the body, and it needs to be diagnosed by someone qualified to do so. Any competent hypnotherapy instructor emphasizes to his or her students the importance of requiring a written referral from an examining physician before ever using hypnosis to reduce pain or other physical symptoms. The exception (for those who are not licensed to practice medicine) is if the examining physician is physically present and/or is supervising the hypnotic process. Since the time of a Hypnotherapist is not nearly as expensive as the time of a physician, hopefully there will be greater cooperation between the medical profession and the hypnotherapy profession in the future. A competently trained Hypnotherapist should know, even with a medical referral, when to simply use hypnosis for symptom removal, and when and how to use hypnosis to search for subconscious causes of the symptom(s). Hypnosis can make a difference even with major disease!
