Format: Audio MP3 file download

Presenter: Daniel Handel, MD

The Healing Impact of Relationship in Palliative Care: In Trance, Out of Trance, Upon Trance

This presentation presents information to increase clinical hypnosis skills for managing pain and suffering associated with advanced illness. Hypnotic interventions in the setting of advanced illness are often similar to those in acute illness settings; however dramatic and relational aspects contribute to the profoundly important work required of ill and dying patients.

This presentation will offer a neurophysiological model of pain, including the management of suffering as a prerequisite for successful management of chronic or terminal pain. The presenter offers a biopsychosocial model that identifies and relies upon strengths and unique individual attributes, rather than relying upon a disease paradigm which focuses upon a diagnostic problem. Specific audio, audio-visual or verbatim scripts demonstrate this model, while adding depth and dimension to this emotionally charged and complex therapeutic material. This presentation will also discuss the burgeoning research that demonstrates mechanisms by which painful sensation can be purposefully reinterpreted, attentional focus can be selectively lessened or redirected from pain, and ?meaning? attached to sensation can be reinterpreted and reframed. This literature can also inform the management of chronic pain, while reducing reliance upon chronic opioid therapies.

Specific preferred methods of coping will be discussed, along with clues provided by patients as to their specific talents and preferences, resulting in a stepped therapeutic approach utilizing these methods. Finally, I will share the formula, taught by my patients, through which suffering begets growth and acceptance. This recipe includes healthy doses of hypnotically facilitated learning combined with just right amounts of trusting relationship, followed by pinches of personal, existential, and spiritual growth.

The presenter will share experiential learning and a philosophy of care gained throughout three decades of practice that has included academic medical pain practice, two decades of hospice and palliative practice, a dozen years as senior clinical staff and founding palliative medicine fellowship director at National Institutes of Health Hospital, and medical professorship at University of Colorado School of Medicine.