On the way of liberation from suffering and pain: role of hypnosis in palliative care

The huge problems related to chronic, ultimately fatal diseases involve disability, pain, suffering and the perception of one’s doom; this calls for reappraising the conventional concepts of health and disease, life and death, encompassing spirituality and the mystery of death beyond any limited perspective. The management of suffering and pain to enhance resilience plays a central role in palliative care (PC) and is the core of the patient-centered approach, focused on the “to care” instead of the “to cure” of the illness-centered medicine. In this article, the perspectives supporting these instances are analyzed, focusing on hypnosis, to be considered as a powerful technique able to improve patient’s control over mind and body (including relaxation, fairness, analgesia, improved stability of physical parameters and wellbeing).