Hypnotic Procedures and Surgery: A Critical Analysis with Applications to “Acupuncture Analgesia”

Although hypnotic procedures are useful for reducing the anxiety of surgery and helping patients tolerate surgery, they do not consistently eliminate pain. Six factors that are part of or associated with hypnotic procedures help patients tolerate surgery. These factors pertain to patient selection, the patient-physician relationship, the preoperative ‘education’ of the patient, the adjunctive use of drugs, and the use of suggestions of analgesia and distraction. It appears that the same factors account for the apparent successes of “acupuncture analgesia” as well. A frequently-overlooked fact, that most internal tissues and organs of the body do not hurt when they are cut by the surgeon's scalpel, is also important in understanding how surgery can be performed with either “hypnoanesthesia” or “acupuncture analgesia.”