ABSTRACT
Hypnosis played a pioneering role in the development of pediatric pain management. Integrating mind and body, the hypnosis experience lends itself to the complex nature of children's pain: acute, procedural, recurrent, chronic and end of life/palliative pain. This chapter provides a brief history of pioneering research that ameliorated pain for children with cancer. We examine current pediatric pain research evidence and provide and detail hypnotic techniques, metaphors and suggestions of hypnotic language for pain treatment. The under-estimated role of a hypnotic explanation to children and families on how pain is processed, and the centrality of the brain is emphasized. Our chapter's central theme is that hypnosis is a natural, elegant fit with the unique problems of pain, particularly persistent pain, and combined with hypnotic communication these pediatric therapeutic interventions have been found highly beneficial, treating the wide range of pediatric pain presentations and in some cases having significantly long-term outcomes.
