Like most people, I’m sure, I was surprised and fascinated to hear the news about Bernadine Coady.  She is the hospital patient in Peterborough who recently underwent knee surgery without any kind of anaesthetic.  Instead, she hypnotised herself so that she would not feel the pain of the operation.  She explained afterwards that all she had felt was a little tugging and pulling.  It was a true case of mind over matter.

 

If only we were all capable of this level of self-hypnosis and relieve ourselves of all physical pain!

 

It made me wonder too how patients’ requirements would change if they were never at risk of feeling pain.  It would presumably reduce the needs for certain types of drug.  Patients’ recreational needs might change too.  We run a business sending gifts to people in hospital on behalf of friends and family who can’t visit the patient in person, and the range of gifts we’d be asked to supply via the website might well extend in all sorts of unexpected directions.

 

But somehow I think Bernadine Coady is a one-off – even though she assures us that anyone is capable of using the self-hypnosis techniques she has perfected.