Hypnosis and surgery

To begin with

It is a well-known fact that psychological challenges, especially depression are so often experienced by a patient before and more so after surgery, specifically major surgery.

Have a look at my article on depression on my website and you might realise that besides medical symptoms, you may experience psychological symptoms, such as depression and anxiety after surgery.

Typical depression symptoms you may experience are:

• fatigue,
• lack of concentration or interest,
• loss of appetite and nausea,
• trouble sleeping,
• night sweats,
• numbness

The Walking Zombie Syndrome

It might be necessary to grasp the idea of Walking Zombie Syndrome in this context. 

The concept of the Walking Zombie syndrome may appear to be a strange, abstract or even weird concept. It is worthwhile to have a closer look at this concept.  Please find my article on the Walking Zombie syndrome on my website. 

The Walking Zombie syndrome boils down to the fact that having this challenge, we may feel like a Zombie.  We may feel dead, yet we are alive.  Although we are alive, we still experience depression and withdrawal, illness, coma, high fever, surgery performed under anaesthesia, and bereavement were just some of the situations through which a death suggestion could be unwittingly assimilated.

The Walking Zombie Syndrome often emerges following a near-death experience, such as a near-drowning incident, a severe accident, or during surgery, where one believes they were about to die or have even already died and were resuscitated. This traumatic perception can trigger the development of this syndrome.  

When we go to hospital for surgery, we expect to be anaesthetised. Our logical rational mind knows that we must be placed into a state of unconsciousness to avoid being aware of the work of the surgeon or the pain going along with it. We even welcome it consciously, since it provides us with comfort and betterment as a result of surgery.

However, there is another kind of thinking that we have, called our life support thinking.

This way of thinking occurs in the primitive part of our brain.  The primitive part of our brain has little ability to reason. It thinks more in terms of black and white, dead or alive.

Our thought processes often diverge from our logical and emotional responses. While our neocortex grasps the necessity of anaesthesia, potentially evoking a positive reaction, our Life Support system, the primitive or lizard brain’s survival mechanism may perceive it as a near-death experience. Although our logic understands anaesthesia and we even feel positive about it, our Life Support system feels that death is imminent, especially when a mask is placed over our nose and mouth that inhibits our breathing.

This means that when you are to undergo surgery, you understand that you are going to be cut by some sort of a knife. Your logical mind is perfectly okay with that. You fully understand that you must be cut in order to heal, to remove anything unwanted or to repair whatever needs to be repaired. However, your subconscious mind or your reptile brain interprets the event as being attacked with a knife.  The body’s natural reaction is to produce adrenaline for the fight or flight response after feeling threatened. However, under anaesthesia, your body becomes immobilised, unable to react to the threat and eventually submits, much like an animal does when it can no longer fend off a predator.

Consciously you are heavenly asleep, unaware of the conflict your subconscious mind is going through at that moment.

If we believed that we were about to die and lost consciousness by any means, that part of our thinking will believe that we have died. When this belief is accepted, it will change us to some degree.

You might even think: but I wasn’t thinking about dying or living. However, this kind of thinking is not located in your neocortex, but rather in your primitive brain or limbic system.

When we believe (subconsciously) that we are dead, or that we have died, we may tend to feel and act dead, listless and tired, lacking energy, or be completely emotionless, due to the belief of your Life Support system.

Hypnosis and surgery

It is my wish that my own personal story might help you to understand this concept better.

I had to have neck surgery years ago to repair two fusions.  It was a complicated and serious surgery with so many things that could go wrong.  I was extremely apprehensive of surgery, and tried to postpone it for as long as possible, whilst I was looking for other and alternative opinions in an attempt to avoid surgery.

The day eventually came for me to accept that I had no other choice than surgery.

I made an appointment with a hypnotherapist to help me through this.

The therapist asked me why I made the appointment.  I told him about surgery the following week, and requested hypnosis to help me with this, as hypnosis can help with:

• stress before surgery about surgery;
• pain control after surgery;
• administration of less anaesthetics;
• quicker healing of wounds;
• recovering;
• overcoming anxiety and depression after surgery;
• healing of scars as a reminder of a trauma;
• the process of awakening after anaesthesia that is normally experienced as being traumatic; as well as,
• avoiding the Walking zombie syndrome.

Hypnotic suggestions

My therapist started to induce hypnosis on me. You might want to look at my article on hypnosis on my website to get more of an idea of what hypnosis really is.

During the hypnotic I consciously felt that the therapist was just talking a lot of nonsense and I have lost interest and my thinking and consciousness were just drifting away to other thoughts and ideas during the process. You will experience the same during hypnosis.  Although your conscious doesn’t have much of a clue what’s going on, these ideas and suggestions remain there in your subconscious mind.

Upon later inquiry, he informed me that he had offered me a series of suggestions for surgery. These suggestions aimed to help me to understand that I:

• need to trust the process and understand that surgery is just a routine process for the surgeon. That it is their daily job, and they perform their job exactly as you and I perform our jobs on a daily basis;
• have no control over surgery, and any stress can only make matters more difficult for the surgeon. Stress and tension are not going to make any surgery better. On the contrary!
• can relax about it. When relaxed, less anaesthesia will be needed;
• am going to be cut with a knife. This process may be experienced as an extremely traumatic one, since pain under normal circumstances serves as a warning that something is wrong.  Pain then causes the body to release adrenaline for the fight-or-flight response. Since the body is now paralysed as a result of anaesthetics, a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness may enter.  I needed to understand subconsciously, that it was a friendly knife to make my life better; 
• will awake after anaesthetics as if I would wake up after a peaceful relaxed sleep;
• may experience strange and uncomfortable sensations in and around the area I was operated on. Those sensations are a sign of healing taking place; may continue to realise that my body is busy healing itself all the time, replacing old cells with new cells. Humans, animals, and plants are in a constant state of self-healing;
• may experience a scar as a symbolic reminder of a trauma. After hypnosis, the subconscious may not register surgery as a severe trauma, and a scar may also become smaller, even invisible.

The aftermath

After my hypnosis session, I went to the hospital the next day – reluctantly ready for my surgery. 

In the waiting room for surgery after my pre-med, there was a friend of mine who was also waiting for her surgery.  We were chatting as if tomorrow would never come, about everything and whatever, that we both had even forgotten about surgery waiting for us.

Finally, it was my turn, and the concierge began to escort me towards the theatre. I recall saying to her: please excuse me – I have to go!

After surgery, I had to spend the mandatory 24 hours in Intensive Care (ICU). After that, I was transferred to a general ward.

After spending another 24 hours in the general ward, the surgeon conducted his ward rounds.

• Upon seeing me, he asked me whether the pain tablets were strong enough. My response was: what pain tablets? He could not believe that I had no pain.
• Next, he opened the bandage to examine the surgical area. I was convinced that he was startled. He responded with:  I can’t believe what I’m seeing.  You may go home.
• Barely 24 hours after being in ICU, I walked, neck-guard and all out of the hospital on my way-back home.
• My scar was so minute that the naked eye will barely spot it, unlike other people who have had the same surgery, who appear as if their neck had been sliced off by a guillotine during a previous life.

To end with – an incredible story about hypnosis as an alternative to anaesthesia.

During the course of 1999, my dad had a gallstone removal surgery without any anaesthesia, but with the use of hypnosis instead of anaesthetics. Making medical history, his story was published in the Longevity Magazine, which I will publish at the end of this article with the friendly courtesy of Longevity magazine.

I am now handing the floor to my dad in his own words:

On Sunday 11 April 1999, I developed a severe stomach-ache during the night and was admitted to a private hospital.

After extensive tests were done, the cause of the problem was clear: I was suffering from acute cholecystitis, and a fairly large gallstone was stuck in the bile duct. It was explained to me that surgery was the only way out, and there would be serious complications if the gallstones were not removed.

A Laparoscopic cholecystectomy was scheduled for that Thursday, the 16^th of April.

In order to remove the gallstones, I needed anaesthetics for surgery. Due to a long-standing asthma issue dating back to 1991, a lung function test revealed that my lung capacity was below 35%. Consequently, my General Practitioner (GP) called off the surgery, deeming it too risky to proceed with anaesthesia given my compromised lungs.

I was literally given a choice: either you die of your gallstones or you die of anaesthetics.  Death was the common denominator.

I had no choice than to consider a possible third alternative. The only alternative was to have surgery without anaesthetics. Since that was impossible, I started to consider hypnosis instead of anaesthetics. Word quickly circulated throughout the hospital that hypnosis would be used instead of general anaesthesia for the upcoming surgery.

I decided to go through with it, and I contacted Dr Louise Olivier, a clinical psychologist specialising in clinical hypnosis. Dr Olivier joined the surgery team to the theatre. During a trial-run in surgery theatre, the surgeon explained to me in detail how surgery was to be performed. After finishing explaining the procedures, Dr Olivier inducted a hypnotic trance on me. The surgeon then stuck four needles into the exact locations where the incisions were to be made later. I could feel the needles piercing my body, but did not experience any pain at all, except for one little prick during the insertion of the first needle. The goal of this experiment was to test my ability to detach from pain with the aid of hypnosis.

A decision was then made to go ahead with surgery. That Saturday afternoon, everyone in the theatre was filled with apprehension; it was the first time ever in South Africa, and perhaps globally, such a major surgery was being performed with a procedure conducted solely under hypnosis, without any form of anaesthesia.

Dr Olivier performed a hypnotic induction on me.  I remember that she asked my subconscious mind to take me to the sinking Titanic from the movie, Titanic and suggested that I was floating in the ice-cold water with a live-jacket on, and also that my whole body beneath my head was becoming numb. After I started to feel dissociated (detached), surgery commenced.