The Enigma of Chronic Abdominal Pain - Putting The Pieces Together
Mark Weisberg, PhD, ABPP and Alfred Clavel, Jr, MD
Format: MP3 Audio file download

The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) dedicated October 2012 to 2013 as the "Global Year Against Visceral Pain". Chronic visceral pain takes many different forms with strong autonomic and emotional responses evoked with minimal pathology. It has been identified as a major health problem that cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars annually. Functional bowel syndromes such as Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and functional dyspepsia (FD) cause unexplained abdominal pain and are common syndromes across the world, affecting up to 15-20% of the population. Regardless of the underlying structural defects, recent advances in the neurobiology of visceral pain has identified autonomic dysregulation, HPA axis dysfunction, and other forms of gut-brain axis dysfunction as contributing factors to persistent pain states. Hypnosis provides a conceptual framework to safely and effectively allowing patients to move from the quest for the elusive "fix" to creating an ideal atmosphere for healing by unlocking the secrets of internal selfhealing resources. Participants will learn to identify and assess central sensitization, and develop hypnotic interventions that will reduce chronic visceral pain, including irritable bowel syndrome and reflux disease (GERD).

During and at the conclusion of this session, the attendee will be able to:

• Express fundamental information for conceptualizing both simple and complex visceral pain;
• Describe the signs of central sensitization, identify at least two indicators for risk of delayed recovery, and learn at least two methods for reducing risk of delayed recovery;
• Explain at least 3 useful hypnotic interventions to reduce the frequency, intensity an intrusiveness of abdominal pain; and
• Differentiate how and when to choose direct versus indirect hypnotic interventions for thecomplex patient with visceral pain.