This article uses the case of a woman named "Diane" who had her leg amputated after a traumatic accident, which not only caused her leg to become infected with gangrene, but gave her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on top of that. After the amputation, Diane was feeling what's known as "phantom limb pain". PLP is a pain felt where your amputated limb used to be. This can be very difficult to cure, since the limb in pain is no longer there. In fact, the only reason the pain is felt at all is because the brain doesn't realize there is no longer a limb there.
That's where hypnosis comes in. Through hypnosis, the map of the body that's in the brain can be redone so that it recognizes that there is no longer a limb there. Once this has happened, the pain stops. Diane went under this hypnosis procedure, and it worked remarkably, proving the effectiveness of this method.
This was an interesting article, but didn't seem to be as professional as it could have. There were a few errors in the way it was set up, like some paragraphs being more spaced than others, but overall it didn't take away from the article, and it was very interesting. I had heard of phantom limb pain before, and it always seemed scary to me. I never knew that hypnosis could cure it. It's nice to know something besides a drug could be used.
This article is very important and relevant to psychology. Phantom limb pain is something a lot of amputees can get, and can be really hard to live with. Introducing the idea of using hypnosis to cure it is genius.
http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/articles/phantom-limb.html
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