Hypnotic Analgesia
Pain is the ultimate psychosomatic phenomenon, always representing both tissue injury and the
psychological reaction to it. The first formal study of hypnosis in pain occurred more than a century ago
in India when a Scottish surgeon named Esdaile[26] reported that hypnosis was 80% effective in
producing surgical anesthesia for amputations. He was immediately censured by his colleagues and 10
years later withdrew his findings when a report from Massachusetts General Hospital stated that ether
anesthesia was 90% effective. Indeed, one of Boston surgeons strode to the front of the amphitheater
and announced, "Gentlemen, this is no humbug!" to distinguish the use of ether from hypnosis.
Nonetheless, it is clear that psychological factors are major variables in the intensity of the pain
experience. Ninety years later, also at Massachusetts General Hospital, Beecher[27] demonstrated that
the intensity of pain was directly associated with its meaning. To the extent that pain represented a threat
and the possibility of future disability, it was more intense than it was among a group of combat soldiers
to whom the pain of injury meant that they were likely to get out of combat alive.