This book was published in 2010 by the American Psychological Society.

The book can be found here: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/David-R-Patterson/Clinical-Hypnosis-for-Pain-Control/15238305

Dr Patterson was the psychologist in a burns unit and first used hypnosis for a patient undergoing extremely painful burns dressing changes with dramatic beneficial effect, dramatically motivating him to go on to research the use of hypnosis for pain.

In this book he provides a wide ranging and detailed account of the use of hypnosis as an alternative to or combined with psychopharmacological interventions for the management of both acute and chronic pain. He examines the psychological approaches to pain and goes on to look at the scientific basis for hypnotic analgesia.

He states that hypnosis should not be regarded as an ‘alternative’ medicine but rather as an innovative way to use the patient’s subconscious resources to reduce pain in a range of clinical settings.

He avoids claiming that hypnosis can be used alone and so for chronic pain he emphasises the need to embed hypnosis into a biopsychosocial approach. Acknowledging the benefits of for instance, cognitive behavioural therapy and in the case of patients who have become inactive and have become resistant to change their behaviour, he discusses the use of motivational interviewing.

There are a number of interesting case descriptions, examples of scripts and over 30 pages of references.

I found his writing style interesting and accessible and would recommend this book as a great resource for any clinicians dealing with patients in pain.

Dr Maureen Tilford