Phenomenology, Hypnosis, and Chronic Pain: Steps for Clinical Understanding

Abstract

This paper proposes phenomenological notions of self-image and body schema as an explicative and clinical possibility for the relationship between hypnosis and chronic pain. It begins with a critique of the medical and nomothetic approach taken by contemporary research that does not usually address clinical issues, and then addresses a case study where a person suffering from chronic pain related both body schema and self-image is submitted to hypnotherapy. The study concludes that there is no linear relationship between such notions and that chronic pain is uniquely configured to each person. This requires a clinical and qualitative approach to access and understand chronic pain, both in terms of classic phenomenological notions of time, space, and material experiences, as well as socio-cultural dimensions that contribute to producing feelings related to the daily experiences of the subjects.