If you're living with chronic pain, you've likely already tried medication, physio, injections, maybe even surgery. Some of it may have helped, but the pain keeps returning, or never fully goes away.

There is more that can be done, and it starts with understanding where pain actually comes from.

I'm Teresa Hayfield, a certified clinical hypnotherapist in Bardon, Brisbane, with over 30 years in health care as a dentist. I work alongside your existing medical care, and before we begin, I'll ask for a short letter from your treating GP or specialist so we're working from the same picture.

The science behind it

Modern pain science has changed how we understand chronic pain. Pain isn't a simple signal travelling from body to brain — it's an experience your brain constructs, weighing everything it knows: signals from the body, yes, but also stress, past experience, beliefs about your body, sleep, and emotional state.

A trip to the dentist shows this well. Most people arrive already braced for pain, primed by expectation alone. If the dentist says “this might sting a bit” just as the injection goes in, that small warning can make it feel more painful, not because anything changed in the tissue, but because the brain, primed by expectation, turns up the volume on the signal it receives.

The amygdala, the brain's fight-or-flight centre, plays a large role in how threatening pain feels. The more on alert it is, the more intense and persistent pain can become. Once pain turns chronic, the nervous system itself can become sensitised, like a thermostat stuck with the dial turned too high. The pain is completely real, but its intensity no longer reflects the actual level of danger in your tissues.

Here's the hopeful part: because the brain and nervous system create the experience of pain, they can also learn to turn the volume back down.

A 2022 meta-analysis of clinical trials in people with chronic musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain found hypnosis produced a moderate reduction in both pain intensity and how much pain interfered with daily life, recognising it as a low-risk, drug-free complementary approach.

Langlois, P., Perrochon, A., David, R., et al. (2022). “Hypnosis to manage musculoskeletal and neuropathic chronic pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 135, 104591.

Similar findings come from work on chronic back pain. A 2022 trial published in JAMA Psychiatry tested Pain Reprocessing Therapy, an approach developed by psychotherapist Alan Gordon that treats persistent pain as a learned, reversible response in the brain rather than a sign of ongoing tissue damage. After a short course of treatment, around two-thirds of participants were pain-free or nearly pain-free, compared to a much smaller proportion in the comparison groups. It's further evidence that when the brain has learned to sound the alarm too readily, it can also learn to stand down.

Ashar, Y.K., Gordon, A., Schubiner, H., et al. (2022). “Effect of Pain Reprocessing Therapy vs Placebo and Usual Care for Patients With Chronic Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial.” JAMA Psychiatry, 79(1), 13–23.

The same hypnosis research found the effect was significantly stronger for people who completed eight or more sessions, versus a smaller, less reliable effect from shorter courses, which is one reason we often recommend a bundle rather than a single session.

Results vary from person to person and tend to be strongest for those who respond well to hypnosis, something we can explore together in your first session.

How hypnotherapy helps

Hypnosis works by calming the stress response and guiding the brain into a focused, receptive state, soothing the fight, flight, or freeze centre. It's gentle, collaborative, and entirely within your control: hypnosis is simply a natural state of relaxed, focused attention, similar to being absorbed in a good book or a daydream. You stay awake and in control throughout.

In this state, you're able to:

• Calm an over-sensitised nervous system and quieten the body's alarm response

• Change how you perceive and process pain signals, using techniques such as imagery, dissociation, and sensory transformation

• Interrupt the pain-tension-stress cycle, where anxiety about pain makes the pain itself worse

• Rebuild confidence and a sense of safety in your body

• Improve sleep, which is closely tied to pain levels and recovery

• Learn self-hypnosis techniques to use between and after sessions, so you're not dependent on me

This isn't about ignoring pain or pretending it isn't there. It's about retraining how your brain and body respond to it, so it loses its grip on your daily life.

A dentist’s - eye view

Over 30 years as a dentist, I've seen the mind-body connection play out first-hand — many patients have gone through procedures with little to no pharmaceutical pain relief, managing instead through the power of their own mind. I've supported clients through procedures including root fillings and molar extractions using hypnoanalgesia in place of pharmaceutical pain relief. One client built this capability steadily over several visits, until self-hypnosis alone was enough to manage even a full extraction — a good illustration of how these skills build over time, session by session, until they become genuinely reliable tools.

Conditions I work with

Hypnotherapy may help with many forms of persistent pain, including:

• Fibromyalgia and widespread pain

• Back, neck and joint pain

• Arthritis-related pain

• Nerve pain

• Headaches and migraines

• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)

• Pain related to medical or dental procedures

• Pain that persists after surgery or injury

• Cancer-related pain

If you don't see your condition listed here, get in touch — I'm happy to talk through whether hypnotherapy could help.

Working alongside your medical care

Hypnotherapy works alongside your medical care, not instead of it. We require a letter from your treating GP or specialist before we start, and we always recommend persistent pain be assessed by your GP or specialist first.

What to expect

Every session is tailored to you. We'll begin with a relaxed conversation about your pain story — what it feels like, when it flares, how it started, and how it's affecting your life. I'll explain how hypnosis works, answer any questions, then guide you into a comfortable, focused state and work at a pace that suits you.

Most clients describe sessions as deeply relaxing, often the most relaxed they've felt in years. You'll also learn self-hypnosis skills to manage pain independently long after our sessions end. Most people benefit from a short course of sessions, with many noticing changes within the first few.

Pricing

• In Person — 1 Session – $170

• Online — 1 Session – $170

• Bundle — 3 Sessions – $435 (save $75)

• Discovery Call — Free

Take the first step

Pain doesn't have to run your life. If chronic pain is limiting what you can do, hypnotherapy offers a gentle, evidence-informed way to help your nervous system find a calmer setting.

Not sure if hypnotherapy is right for you? Book a free, no-pressure discovery call to ask questions, share what you're dealing with, and see if it feels like the right fit.

This page draws on principles from pain neuroscience education and pain reprocessing approaches — fields represented in widely used patient resources such as Explain Pain and Painful Yarns by Professor Lorimer Moseley (noigroup.com), and The Way Out by Alan Gordon. If you'd like to explore the science further between sessions, these are excellent starting points.

Hypnotherapy is a complementary therapy and is not a substitute for medical diagnosis or treatment. Always consult your GP about new or changing pain.