Hypnosis for Migraines

• Ego State Therapy: A Spiritual Crisis by David Renouf. M.Ed., CMHC, 7/21/98
  
  

David, There's lots of great behavioral medicine intervention for headaches, and there's lots of different kind of headaches. First, you would want to determine if that's the kind of headache she's having: (e.g., is the headache mainly specific to one spot (often above the eyes), is it accompaned with photophobia, nausea or vomitting, etc., is it often brought on by certain foods, etc.) Lots of folks say they're having a migraine, because its a term they've head people use to describe a headache. But in many cases, they're simply having a tension headache. For tension headache, the treatment should entail teaching the person through biofeedback how to keep these muscles relaxed (or EVOKING this process with hypnosis). Alternatively, the patient could be experiencing sinus headaches, cluster headaches, TMJ headaches, or even have a tumor. It is really encumbent upon you for her to be medically evaluated before you proceed with hypnosis, which I trust you have already done. Finally, if she does indeed have a migraine, there's quite a bit of evidence now to suggest that migraines are a vascular headache. That is, migraine patients blood vessels constrict, and they rebound beyond their normal width. This stretches the walls of the vessels and "irritates" the nerves contained therein. Biofeedback can help teach patients how to keep their blood vessels relaxed. Additionally, this process can be EVOKED by the use of hypnosis. Please feel free to contact me should you desire any further information at: EricSimon@Rocketmail.com. Eric

• No clients in a vacuum, please by Stephen Lankton, 7/30/98