Many years ago, I was invited to join Professor M.E. Faymonville's medical team in the department of the Liege CHU - Algology and Continuing Cares.
Prf M.E. Faymonville is a world pioneer in the use of medical hypnosis used in surgery and to reduce chronic pain.
As a music therapist, I began to record hypnoses with some interventions about the non verbal aspect on top of adjusting the pace.
Quickly it appeared that music could offer an additional help by creating a particular atmosphere adapted to the verbal metaphors of hypnosis and the tempo of the sentences. So we created a CD to facilitate the MRI test for claustrophobic patients. Mixing music and words, it brought a considerable comfort.
Other psychologists, members of the hypnotherapy team, were quickly convinced that music specially created for this purpose could bring an additional profit to hypnosis. So many specialized musical pieces were composed to improve their confort.
So music has taken a place among other techniques which were already used in the reduction of pain, because it induces hypnosedation.
Two years ago a study was required by Prf. Faymonville to objectivize the effects of the various techniques used by the Liege Team of Algology. Quite naturally music pieces specially composed with diverse techniques known since antique times for their effects on pain were created in respect of the hypnosis text and thus without any words.
7 CD - duration 20 minutes each - used my "slash method " were composed and tested by more than a hundred patients. We are still excepting the results. But it is clear that music will take a part in the treatment of chronic pain and many other disorders.
Here on the left or below, you can find some aspects of the works realized by the Algology team.