Hypnotherapy provides powerful pain relief

In a world first, a singer has undergone surgery while fully awake to avoid damage being done to her vocal chords.

For pain relief the singer was put into a hypnotic trance and sang throughout the operation to have a tumour removed from her throat.

The doctor who performed the procedure said the pain would have been intolerable without hypnosis and if the patient had not been awake and singing he could not have been sure her voice would remain intact afterwards.

During the operation, the singer pictured herself far away from the Paris hospital in her homeland of Senegal .