Psychological therapies ease arthritis pain

Arthritis sufferers can alleviate their pain by using mental imagery and hypnotherapy.

This is the finding of Bryan Bennett and colleagues from Bangor University who presented their findings on the 11 September 2008, at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference held at the University of Bath.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, progressive and disabling auto-immune disease affecting 0.8% of the UK adult population. It is an incredibly painful condition and can cause severe disability and ultimately affects a person’s ability to carry out everyday tasks. Even with current medical treatment many people still report high levels of pain. A rising number of chronic sufferers now turn to complementary and alternative medicines to lessen the main symptoms of pain and fatigue.

This study examined the effect of visualisation techniques and hypnotherapy to help reduce the pain and fatigue, which prevents many sufferers from living a full and active life.

Forty two patients were asked to visualise their pain in different ways and try to manage it. For example participants were asked to visualise their pain in the form of a person and then thank that person for letting them know something was not right. They would then ask the person to leave, visualising their image going further away, until the image was hardly visible and eventually disappearing, leaving them free of pain.

The results showed that these imagery techniques, and hypnotherapy, were effective at reducing the pain and fatigue caused by RA.

Bryan Bennett commented: ‘All the participants were asked to identify what areas of their life were important to them but were negatively affected due to the RA. By doing so they were taking an active part in their own therapy. By employing the techniques they were taught, they were able to self-treat when necessary – allowing them to control their pain and enabling them to get on with enjoying life.’

More than 700 psychologists from the UK, Europe and further are gathering at the University of Bath from 9 – 12 September 2008 for the joint European Health Psychology Society and British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology Conference 2008.

The conference, themed ‘Behaviour, Health and Healthcare: From Physiology to Policy’, will look at how psychology can be applied at individual and group level to promote health, and even prevent illness, at a national level.

(Source: The British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference: British Psychological Society: September 2008)