| Abstract: | Health-care staff (e.g. doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists) frequently have to care for patients who suffer from conditions which cause crippling pain. Pain relief is part of such treatment. This article suggests how counselling, as a skill which every health care worker could acquire and use, may reduce the level of pain by helping the sufferer cope more effectively with it. Four principles of pain relief are considered: the therapeutic relationship; other sensory input; rest and relaxation; and the use of imagery. The discussion on pain relief centres on rest and relaxation and the use of imagery, based mainly on the work of Jung and Assagioli's model of psychosynthesis. Patients are encouraged to continue practising these pain-relieving techniques when counselling has ended. By so doing, they will acquire positive ways to escape from the world of nightmare in which sufferers from chronic pain are often held prisoners. An account is included of how a sufferer from trigeminal neuralgia benefited from one session in which imagery was used. |
