December 1, 2019 By Admin

Quasi Self-Hypnotic Pain Relief

To be successful in this intervention you will have to let go of ego-based defensiveness and remain quite focused for quite some time. These are not easy things to do. DO NOT do this intervention if you are feeling highly vulnerable at this time, or if you are not working with a well-trained and experienced psychological health care provider. If you are in therapy this might be a good intervention to do with your helper, that is if your helper feels confident and competent with this level of clinical intervention. This is a long intervention, so it may be helpful to have your helper read the instructions to you. It may be a very good idea to share this with your healthcare provider/s to see if they think you should or should not do this intervention. It is quite OK to beak this intervention down into a couple shorter experiences. Here we go!

While lying down in a comfortable positions complete several long, slow, deep breaths.
Take another long, slow, deep breath; this time hold the exhalation to the count of 4-5.
Close your eyes and be very gentle with yourself. Just rest and breathe calmly.
For the next few minutes use conscious distraction to pay close attention to places in your body where you are not experiencing physical or emotional pain and suffering. Focus strongly on the absence of pain.
Now make an image of either a safe or happy place from your life experience. Do your best to expand the details of this image (colors, people, places, things, etc.). DO NOT get stuck in wishing for this experience again. Simply be with the experience and remain positively focused. If “poor me” sets in, the rest of this intervention will most likely not be helpful.
Now take a closer analysis of the safe or happy place: What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What were you doing?
In that happy or safe place in your imagination, notice what your senses were doing: What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel? Were there any specific tastes or smells associated with the pleasant experience? What was your interoception like (internal feelings and sensations)?
Now shift into trying imaginal numbing of the painful area of your in-body suffering. You may use an ice-pack to assist this process (no more than 15-20 minutes, never directly on your skin, and never if you have been told not to use ice).
Now note the quasi-hypnotics. As you change the imagined shape of the pain, what do you notice? As you change the shape again, what do you notice? Now work on the size (larger or smaller, whichever feel better). As you work on the size, imagine your favorite color over the painful area and notice. As you notice the color, also notice if pain is more/less in the center of the area or on its periphery. Working from the center or the periphery, notice where the pain or suffering subsides. Where is that place? Be there! Concentrate!
As you move on from these imaginary manipulations, bring your spiritual self to act on your behalf. Allow! Allow your spiritual self to support you in the reduction of your pain/suffering.
Shift gently to any helpful relationship you now have or did have in the past. If in the past DO NOT lament; instead use the power of caring from that experience to support yourself here now. See the positive person.
Now do your best to combine the image of the caring person’s face with your happy or safe place experience. This means you are sharing it with them, and that your memory will allow them to help you.
Say “As I visit my safe/happy place I notice I am feeling less pain.”
Say “As I feel slightly less pain, I notice I am feeling emotionally stronger.”
Say “As I feel emotionally stronger, my sensation of pain is reduced.”
Say “As I notice these improvements, I smile deeply to myself.” Smile now! Smile deeply!
Say “As I smile and focus on my facial feelings, I feel less pain sensations.”
Say “As I feel less pain sensations, I notice gentle, glowing white light all over my body.”
Say “As I notice this healing white light, I also notice feeling less pain.”
Say “As I experience the healing white light and less pain, I feel happier.”
Say “As I feel happier, I breathe more freely and notice pain leaves my body on each of my exhalations.”
Say “As I continue to breathe myself out of pain, smile, and feel more happiness – I feel less pain.”
Now simply rest and smile – breathe in a self-loving manner. Let the pain leave on each exhalation. Just be there! Use the power of your mind to assist you.
After a few minutes you can end and leave your lying position.
You may want to keep a pain-reduction journal – note only positive changes in your efforts. Read the entries again later.
I hope you found this helpful. May you be free from suffering – free from pain! Love yourself more!

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton Sangha

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon

Understanding Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy? Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (or Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, hereafter CBT) has been noted as the most common evidence-based therapy approach used in the United States. That said, the most common “therapy” approach used here remains generic talk therapy with more or less psychodynamic characteristics. Given the absolute limited level of outcome-based evidence for effectiveness of […]

Zen Buddhist Emptiness and Christian Centering Prayer Recently Ken McLeod presented “Freedom of Choice” as a way to differentiate forms of spiritual materialism and emotional escapism from serious Buddhist practice. He noted The Heart Sutra negations. There is no attainment for bodhisattvas as they pursue the perfection of wisdom. Ultimately, everything is empty. He refers […]

Core Elements in Clinical Supervision In addition to what supervisors bring into group supervision and clinical training, the list below will be used for discussion about YOUR supervisory role. The order of content below is generally random. The content noted applies to clinical supervision; it could also apply to doing effective therapy. The skills and […]

Mindfulness in the NFL Yes, mindfulness as part of sports psychology programming is being used in the NFL. Yes, big and physically tough football players are being helped via a mindfulness component of sports psychology. There are some important roots here. Dogen, the famous ancient Japanese Buddhist meditation master, brought Chan Buddhism from China to […]

Mindfulness Practices for Expanding Acceptance Mindfulness and contemplation can be great allies in our struggle to better understand each other. This is especially true when it comes to matters of interpersonal relationships and highly significant relationships. It is also important in diversity, or as some now refer to it – variation in human beings. Variation may […]

Setting Emotional Boundaries from Work to Life Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC Sometimes setting emotional boundaries from the psychotherapy room to your life outside of work can be a difficult thing to do. Shifting from “experience near empathy” (Kohut), “unconditional positive regard” (Rogers), “hovering attention” (Freud), “the holding environment” in “intersubjective space” (Winnicott), and compassionate […]

America’s Opioid Problem-2020; A Brief Update Unfortunately, Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is alive and well in 2020. Today approximately 150 People are dying each day due to opioid overdose. The CDC noted that from 1999 to 2017 approximately 399,000 people died in the United States from Opioid overdose. Related to chronic pain, this is one […]

Your Regular Practice: Impact on Yourself From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont Compassion Training: Here is a quick self-assessment process to see if your regular compassion practice has had positive effects on you. Review the questions below and decide what your answers are. I hope you have noted pleasant […]

Spiritual Mantras from Buddhism Spiritual Mantras: Mantra practice is certainly not informal Buddhism, nor is it a way to apply practical mindfulness skills to life. The path of mantra practice is much deeper than the psychological applications for good health. Mantra practice is a highly important part of formal Buddhist practice, especially on the spiritual […]

A Buddhist Sutta on Your Desires and Suffering This post is about the Buddhist Sutta called The Gilana Sutta (SN 35:74). It is a touching story about a young monk, who became very ill. Another monk informed The Buddha of the young monk’s health conditions. Buddha visited and hoped he had improved and held on to […]

Amitabha Buddha – Pure Land Meditation The following meditation had been modified by me to make it a more specific self-healing meditation and to better fit the time we now live in. Sit quietly and complete 3-4 deep, calming breaths. Pay attention to the quality and density of the light you see outside of your […]

Meditation at the Deepest Levels In 2007 M. A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, opened up a whole new, deeper perspective on why consciousness or pure awareness is the root of self. Even in a Buddhist “no-self” view, Singer’s inquiries leave us with a great deal to unravel. Here are some reasons why […]

Mindfulness Training From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton,Vermont The Problem: Many people become stuck in the suffering of their past, and they continue to re-experience an event in the futile hope to better understand it, or to find an escape from it. Many of the same people become fixated fearfully […]

Advanced Buddhist Practices Abiding in Emptiness The various impediments (enemies) to abiding in emptiness are noted below. We have strong attachment to objects of mind and our sense door pleasures. We experience strong desire and cravings as our norms. We over-attach to forms of affection. We may become stuck in grief related to our experienced […]

A Tribute to Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) Recently Ram Dass died at his home in Maui. He was 88 years old. He was born into a well-off Boston family, and enjoyed materialism in his early professional years. When completing a Ph.D. in Psychology at Stanford University he was still into material things. His spiritual awakening […]

Interoception and Your Inner Self-Helper Interoception (sometimes called neuroception) is a sensory experience, in which you feel sensations in your body (viscera, heart, throat, etc.) that may be warning signs of limbic surveillance or inner continuity of your inner self-helper – that part of you and your brain that hopes to help you in whatever […]

Participate in Groups for Meditation, Problem-Solving, and Task Completion Meditation With The Sangha Among regularly practicing meditators and various meditation traditions, the sangha is the social, emotional and spiritual collective that continues to support ongoing serious practice and progress along the Path. Given that so much has been written about the many benefits of practicing […]

Pursuit of Happiness – Mindful Happiness Gilbert, a professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of Stumbling on Happiness, implies that we make mind-errors in our search for happiness. Happiness is a core human emotion, most often activated into consciousness via the midbrain reward centers and dopamine activation. Perhaps our hardwired brains are made to […]

Building Emotional Resilience On a personal note, right now I am suffering. Its April 15th and I have a terrible viral infection (sore throat, chest congestion, and fever). I feel weak and miserable. Perhaps all that frigid air we endured in New England this Winter also kept infectious “stuff” under control for a while. However, […]

The Heart Sutra – Thich Nhat Hanh “Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha.” This ultimate mantra is one of the most important in Buddhism. Thich Nhat Hanh’s new translation of The Heart Sutra offers a great deal of enlightened, sometimes more advanced, information and process. Avalokitesvara and other great Bodhisattvas present important views of this […]