Chronic pain was different. Chronic pain is the one that stays long after the original injury has healed. The one that defies simple explanation. The one my medical training didn’t prepare me nearly well enough to treat.
I know, because I was one of those doctors.
For patient after patient living with persistent pain, I had prescriptions. I had referrals. I had genuine sympathy and very little else. If you have ever sat across from a doctor who clearly wanted to help but simply ran out of options, I was that doctor more times than I care to count.
What I understand now — and wish I had understood then — changes everything.
Pain is not simply a signal travelling from a damaged body part to your brain. It is far more complicated than that. A significant amount of what we experience as pain is actively constructed by the brain itself. The brain takes incoming information from the body and factors in your emotional state, your memories, your level of anxiety, your expectations — and then decides how much pain to generate.
This is not a theory. Neuroimaging studies confirm it. Your mood and mental state can measurably change your experience of pain, independently of any physical change in the underlying condition.
This is why two people can sustain identical injuries and suffer very differently. It is why chronic pain so often persists long after the original injury has healed. The brain, doing its best to protect you, has simply not had permission to stand down.
So where does that leave us?
It leaves us with an opportunity. Because if the brain plays such a central role in how pain is processed, the brain also becomes our greatest tool for doing something about it.
I trained as a consulting hypnotist in 2019 — more than a decade after leaving medicine. I will be honest with you: I was sceptical for most of my medical career. Hypnosis was not something taught in medical school, and what most people picture when they hear the word — stage performers, swinging watches, theatrical mind control — is nothing like what clinical hypnosis actually is.
Clinical hypnosis is recognised by the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association and the Royal Society of Medicine. A 2024 meta-analysis pooling seventy randomised controlled trials and over six thousand patients confirmed significant reductions in pain intensity when hypnosis is used alongside standard care. The American Medical Association has recognised it as a legitimate therapeutic technique since 1958. This is not fringe medicine.
In a hypnosis session, the conscious critical mind — the part that says “I’ve tried everything, nothing works” — becomes quieter. In that quieter state, the subconscious becomes more open to experiencing the body differently. Pain can be turned down. The anxiety that wraps itself around chronic pain can be gently loosened. Patients can learn self-hypnosis, so they have a tool available at home, around the clock, without a prescription and without side effects.
I want to say something clearly, because too many patients have been made to feel otherwise: this does not mean the pain is imagined. It does not mean you are exaggerating. The pain is completely real. What we are doing is addressing it at the neurological level where all pain ultimately lives — the brain.
I am genuinely sorry I did not discover this sooner. Not for my own sake, but for the patients I saw over twenty years who deserved better than what I was able to offer them.
If you are living with chronic pain that has not responded fully to everything you have tried — I would like to have a conversation. A free introductory call, no obligation, just an honest discussion about whether this might be a fit for you.
And if you would like to hear more, I am hosting a free live online talk on June 27th at 11am Eastern time. You are welcome to join live or receive the recording. Visit our website to register.
Denise Billen-Mejia is a retired physician and consulting hypnotist working with clients worldwide via Zoom. Visit healandberadiant.com.
Dr. Denise Billen-Mejia is a former emergency medicine physician turned clinical hypnotist, dedicated to helping people find relief that conventional medicine alone hasn’t been able to provide.
To explore further, find articles and resources, or get in touch with Denise directl email office@aahypnosis.com or visit her website: healandberadiant.com
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