MIGRAINES seemed to be my heritage, my mother had suffered until she reached her 60s and my older sister was similarly afflicted.

Desperate for a cure, I even endured steroid injections into the back of my head, without benefit.

So, when the idea was first mooted that the cure lay not in pills or even the host of alternatives I explored – acupuncture, osteopathy, reflexology, massage and feverfew – but in mind over matter I thought it ridiculous.

However willpower – namely a programme called Resolution Magic devised by Bournemouth woman Olivia Roberts – which uses a series of simple mental exercises, is what finally freed me from an agony which had blighted my life for 20 years.

The exercises seem to retrain the way that the body and mind react to electrical waves inside you so that physical symptoms gradually reduce until they disappear altogether.

At first I had no faith in it working and was openly sceptical during initial conversations with Olivia, a psychotherapist and neuro-linguistic programme practitioner.

After talking to Olivia, who does telephone consultations, about when I had my first migraine (in early puberty) and what the initial warning signs are, she began to uncover some of the past experiences in my life that she thought might be contributing to my condition.

Looming largest was the death of my sister, Jane, who was knocked down by a car and killed as we walked home from school, when she was eight and I was nine.

Although the experience was devastating and, as the only person with her as we stepped onto the zebra crossing, I blamed myself for her death, I never had counselling and Olivia began to help me to alter the way I felt about the tragedy and its dreadful aftermath.

Olivia’s technique meant I didn’t have to relive the agony of that time. She taught me some mental exercises to change the way I felt about the tragedy without having to rationalise my feelings away.

Olivia showed me how to do a simple mental exercise every couple of hours whenever I had a migraine so that my mind would gradually switch to a new pain-free sequence.

In the months that followed she offered weekly telephone support and told me I could ring her any time – I took her at her word, even once calling on Boxing Day.

Within a month I enjoyed a gap of two whole weeks without symptoms.

Then I had the mother of all migraines and had to draw on huge inner reserves to continue with the programme.

The gaps between migraines grew longer, first a month, then three months then eventually six months. The intensity and duration also reduced with each attack.

Now I haven’t had a migraine for more than three years, something I never believed possible. There are no foods, drinks or situations I have to avoid.

No longer living in fear of the next attack has been hugely liberating.

• Olivia has brought out a book about Resolution Magic called Chronic Pain and Debilitating Conditions Resolution available on Amazon and findhornpress. com, price £12.99.

To find out more, visit resolutionmagic.com