Reflective Journal Entries: Fibromyalgia Rubber Suit Induction!

From Lucy Waterhouse, with thanks

I was having a chat with my aunt about the course and she is having a really difficult time with her life at the moment recalling events that have happened in her childhood and I read her the following script from my workbook: themselves “wearing a heavy rubber suit, that is being filled with air, that air is blowing the suit up bigger and bigger and bigger and the pressure is becoming terribly uncomfortable, all that pain caused by all that pressure…. 

The pain that was previously just in your legs is now all over and you know that to get rid of it you have to take the suit off. You realise that the suit is very familiar, almost as if you are wearing it all the time, though nobody notices, you do, you can feel the pressure, feel it now!(looking for uncomfortable facial expressions and distaste) feel how that pressure is stopping you moving freely, the suit is so heavy and restrictive, If only you could remember how to get out of it. You realise that this suit has been stuck on your body for such a long time and has stopped you from enjoying things that other people get to enjoy because it is just so uncomfortable to move. Think…. Think about the day you put this suit on for the first time…. Was it when you were a child? Or did you run about like all the other children? Was it when you were a teenager? Or were you enjoying doing the things that teenagers do? When did you put it on? I would like you to move this finger (nominate a finger)

With honest unconscious movement to let me know when you have remembered… take your time…. Fantastic! Now you can remember the day all this started, I want you to go back to a week before then when everything was just normal. If you bumped your head or stubbed a toe it would hurt but it would hurt appropriately and would return to normal fairly quickly. I want you to take me back to the week before you put on that pain suit. And I want you to remember exactly how you put it on! Was it because you had been unwell physically? 

Maybe a virus? Maybe when you put it on it felt tight and safe and secure, maybe it protected you from something. Somewhere inside you knows what the reason was that you put that painful suit on. I want you to remember that now and when you do let me know by moving that finger…. Just let it move all by itself, it doesn’t matter if the details are vague to your conscious mind, to your unconscious all will become clear and as your unconscious mind wants to keep you safe the reasons for you wearing that suit are definitely your unconscious mind’s way of protecting you. I want to help you to take off that suit now. Remember how it went on…. Is it a zip at the back? Is it buttons? Laces? Clips? I want you to reach towards whatever is keeping that suit on and undo it…….feel the relief as the pressure releases from the suit…. 

Feel how much softer and more comfortable your legs and arms and shoulders feel, feel how much easier it is to move around! Feel how much looser and freer you are! Now I know that you still have the ability to get back into that suit so I want to do something with that suit now…. So we know it’s air tight…. So what could we possibly do to get rid of it? When you look around you notice a canister of helium. Why don’t we fill up that pain suit with helium, so that it is light as a feather….

Fill it right up, and keep filling it until you run out of helium….. Just keep filling it and filling it, making it lighter and lighter…. The helium has run out and there’s a tiny bit of space left in it… I want you to blow all that remains of the pain into that pain suit…… and as you have done that now and you are no longer bound by its oppressive suffocating sensation, you will be able to feel normal amounts of pain at appropriate times, like if you bump your head or stub your toe….. But these pains will last a few moments then just pass like they are floating away on the wind…. 

Now what shall we do with this pain suit? It’s so light now and has all the discomfort that you had in your body as a result of fibromyalgia caught up inside it…. I have an idea….. With your new lightness and your new ability to move freely and comfortably with ease and grace, you run, yes RUN up that little hill over there, barefoot, feel the cool grass on your feet, feel the warm sun on your back….. the smell of fresh air that you hadn’t noticed for so long because the pain suit was in the way, but now you are holding it, sealed and full of helium on top of that hill about to free yourself from all that pain and invite all the warmth comfort and energy of the nature around you…. Now reach up as high as you can and let go of that big balloon, let it go, that pain suit just floats higher and higher, disappearing upwards and further and further upwards. Getting smaller and smaller and no longer a part of you….. letting it go now… letting it go, letting it float and drift and disappear…… just a speck now…… just a tiny speck, only YOU can control you now…….. Now there you are, completely content that any pain that you feel as a result of injury will be appropriate for the injury you have sustained. The pain that is a warning will still be felt, but maybe from now on it won’t be a [ain, it will be a different sensation, like a whirring or a fluttering, just enough to alert you to the existence of something wrong that needs to be dealt with. Remember…… that suit has floated so far away now that you can’t even see it….”

….After reading this script to my aunt, outside the formal hypnotherapy setting and just in the manner of reading it aloud, without directly going through an induction etc, it still had a profound effect on her. She reported feeling lighter, feeling like she had handed over the stress that she was going through to the person who it pertains to, basically she revealed that she had been raped by her sister’s husband when she was 16 after years of grooming. She listened intently over the telephone to me reading the script which after listening to her I intuitively thought that this was the best thing I could offer her by way of support and she took a huge sigh almost sounding like she had breathed out much of the doubt and pain she had carried following opening up to her sister that afternoon and said, very positively, ‘I have carried this for years, like it is my pain and shame to bear, but now I feel like I have given it away’. I offered her some more formal sessions of hypnotherapy over the coming weeks when I know she will be feeling especially vulnerable and will need reassurance and balance to help her to feel more in control. She agreed that it would be a good idea and we have arranged some time for her.

I have found during this course that my desire to work with clients who are at the end of their lives has intensified. Since completing my first diploma over a year ago and practicing hypnotherapy regularly in various capacities, working with groups, working individually and with pairs of people I have become more resolute about using my skills in a palliative care setting, working with adults and children to come to terms with their situation and helping to heal and restore balance to their minds and bodies at what could be a deeply traumatic time. I would love to use what I have learnt to make people physically and mentally and emotionally more comfortable and at ease with what they are going through. I have mentioned this in another part of my reflective journal and feel that it is something that I need to investigate and learn more about. I have found a tutor who runs a palliative care course near to where I live and will be taking part in that the next time that it runs, and I have been sending emails to a local hospice with a view to going in to do some sessions with their day hospice group for relaxation and achieving balance as well as with a view at some point in the near future to going in and working with their residents who are receptive to such a treatment.

Reflective Journal Entries: Smoking and toxic relationship

From Lucy Waterhouse with thanks

I had a client who had sought help to deal with her smoking addiction and who had recently lost her mother- who was a heavy smoker- to lung cancer, She became very upset and demonstrated great shame about the fact that they were doing the same thing that had killed her mother and if she didn’t stop she would do the same to her children, about which she felt great guilt. Once I had the client in a deep level of trance I told her a story about carrying a heavy weight up a hill. 

She had already told me that she loved to take her kids up the Lickey Hills in South Birmingham, and I told her about carrying that weight up the hill then filling up balloons and visualising the toxic air in her lungs into the balloon and watching the balloon float away, becoming a speck in the distance then disappearing altogether. I had used the words ‘letting go’ embedded into the phrases that I was using with her in the intervention and described how clean the air was up the hill and how the trees were so lush, like the lungs of the earth, filling it up with oxygen, clean and pure, and that toxic balloon disappearing. I saw the client two weeks later and she had stopped smoking all together and was really proud of herself. She reported that her asthma had abated and her fitness had too.

N.B. I spoke to this client since I submitted this answer, yesterday, (17/05/2015) and she told me that she had recently met up with a man who she had previously had a (toxic) relationship with and that he had been keen to start a relationship again, and she said that she was suddenly back on that hilltop again in her head and realising that the relationship was actually not healthy and she imagined herself letting go of the relationship in the same way.

Reflective Journal Entries: Wedding HypnoBand

From Lucy Waterhouse, with thanks

Oct 2014

Well yesterday was a resounding success I am pleased to say, I worked with a couple who are friends of ours who are getting married in June and who both want to 'lose some weight' for the wedding. I was only doing the gastric band hypnosis for one of them today as I had limited time, but now the other friend wants me to do a hypno band done as well. 

I had offered to do it for them both as a wedding present for them both as I know that they are both very committed to making lifestyle changes and really committed to being active in their behavioural changes. Anyway, I decided after asking the person who I was doing the band for today first if it was ok, that I would do a consultation with them both together as they will be supporting one another and I wanted them to outline and understand what their joint goals were specifically. I did a lot of metaquestioning asking them to be really specific in their expectations and their desired outcome, helping them to change their language from blame frame to outcome frame and 'moving away from moving towards' etc. It was a really fruitful discussion and the deeper we went the more honest and open they were becoming which was honestly really wonderful to be a part of. We talked about the kinds of foods that they would be willing and able to enjoy and stick to in place of the junk foods they were choosing up until today (yesterday). 

We talked about strategies that they could put in place. Then I went upstairs with the woman I was working with, I did the session in their house, and asked her more personal questions about the attachment of guilt, shame, punishment and reward to the foods that she was choosing specifically and the emotional eating side of things. she was very open and honest as far as I could tell (micro expressions training really helped!!) and without even formally telling her that I would be starting the trance part of the session, as she was already showing good signs of being in a fairly deep level of trance without actually going through the induction, fixed gaze, dilated pupils, slowed breathing and so on, so just started asking her to notice her breathing and start slowing her out breath, and then only spoke to her as she was breathing out, which I stared doing more slowly until she had really become very slowed down and relaxed. I went through a long fractional induction, asking her to be mindful of all of her body and how it has been designed to work so efficiently and with so much complexity that her unconscious mind works so hard keeping everything moving and digesting and metabolising as well as working behind the scenes to protect her, I started to introduce the idea of filling her body with things that are healthful and nutritious, not just food but the way she communicates with herself and the idea of having control over her breathing and her heart rate meant that she would have more control over other aspects of her body and its functions. Anyway, I did all the regular stuff, relaxing place (which was actually two places, her own home with her partner and her dog and a beach that they visit every year to stay in a caravan on the beach...) anchoring them and asking for an IMR from her finger on the nearest hand, which I got very clearly- she remembered afterwards that it had happened a couple of times, the IMR that she was aware of, she described it as being like that weird jerk you get when you are falling asleep and feel like you are avoiding tripping or falling by moving or twitching without consciously making it happen. I did the gastric band then did a New behaviour generator which I got some fantastic feedback from her moving her finger, I mentioned when I nominated a finger that she could tell me that she was on board with the thoughts and ideas that I was saying at any point during the session by moving that finger and I got regular and distinct finger movement with what was happening- therefore I was getting an IMR at regular intervals throughout the whole session, not just when I asked a direct question but I had said when I touched her feeling that any time her unconscious mind was in total agreement with what I was saying to her, she would be able to move that finger to let me know she was fully on board. She became emotional several times during the session, especially when I mentioned her partner and dogs, including her dog who had passed away last year, she told me that in her ideal relaxing place there would be her, her partner and both dogs. I did some really detailed future pacing going forward days, weeks, months and years, having her greet her future space and assimilate that future self into her current self and begin to be that future self starting right now. She had made some wonderful facial expressions throughout the session, joy, sadness, teariness, real sadness, surprise, but mostly very very peaceful. 

When I brought her round, counted up to 5, and she woke feeling absolutely fantastic and really, really motivated. I told her that her signals that she was in a deep trance were really clear and that she looked completely relaxed and she said that she felt like she had had a refreshing 8 hour sleep and felt really motivated! I got a text from her saying that they had used smaller plates for their dinner and were both satisfied. Not stuffed. 

My next session with her, I will concentrate on feeling full and stuffed vs feeling satisfied and comfortable, and the reward/punishment aspect of her relationship with food as well as reinforcing. I might do some more NLP with her as the NLP worked really well in the beginning. She absolutely felt like she had had a 8 hour sleep and felt REALLY relaxed but incredibly motivated, she said "I just keep thinking 'bring it on!!'" I told her that she had had a wonderfully relaxed expression in her face and that I could see how emotionally invested she was in making this WORK. she had specifically asked if she could have her dog who has passed away in her relaxing place, along with her wife-to-be and her other dog who is still alive, and when we went to that relaxing place I could see the emotional reaction that she was having, both a joyous feeing of safety and calm an love but also that she was very emotional, we went back there a few times and when she woke up she said 'it was really beautiful, I was on the beach with my two dogs and my [fiancée] and the beach was completely empty except for us and I could feel the beach, you know, like the wind and the water on my feet and I was so happy there that I felt like i had tears running down my face' 

After the gastric band part of the intervention I did the new behaviour generator with her, just briefly and her unconscious mind was blatantly on board with absolutely all the concepts and choices that her unconscious mind was taking it all in and processing things...I have another session in the offing in the next 10 days to 2 weeks then another and maybe another, then in that same time period I will be working with her wife-to-be and I can honestly say she was an absolute dream of a client and I can't wait to work on our next session. it was just fabulous! (again thanks for reading my tome!) next hypnotherapy day at the charity counselling centre is on Tuesday next week as in, 3 days’ time!!! Finally.... We have lift off!

Reflective Journal Entries: More Past Lives

From Lucy Waterhouse, with thanks

I had my first past life regression session today, I was extremely nervous as I hadn’t done one before, but it was landed on me at the last moment by B and I had half an hour to prepare, reading the sample script that B & J sent to me. Despite having read the script I was still apprehensive as I wasn’t (and still am not!) sure what my own experiences and views of past life regression are.

Anyway, the client that I met at the door wasn’t the client who had booked the session, I was expecting a woman who had strong positive beliefs about past life regression and instead I got a man who thought it was all jiggery pokery and didn’t even think he could be hypnotised…. My heart sank, but I had committed so I led him into the treatment room, introducing myself and finding out his name. We sat and had a chat, building rapport, talking about his journey there and what his views were on past life regression and I began to mirror his movements, face touching, clearing throat etc. I was unsure what kind of questioning to do for this kind of session, so I just listened as he talked about his views, which were basically that he didn’t believe that there was such a thing as a past life, and that he doubted very much that he would be able to achieve a trance. I have to admit that I was more than a little daunted, and upon questioning and more talking I ascertained that he was good at visualising as opposed to remembering or constructing using his other senses. 

 I expected some resistance to going into a trance and was absolutely thrilled when he went into a really deep but still workable trance with very little effort, I had some great ideomotor responses and other signs of trance were positive- slowed breathing, slowed pulse- I could see his heat beat on his t shirt on his chest, and a floppy arm with no resistance when I moved it, smooth facial muscles, smiling in response to positive imagery… As it turned out this total sceptic had a very positive experience of past life regression hypnotherapy and went away feeling really validated and positive.

Sept 2014

My past life clients who were madly in love!.... I think this was my second ever past life client experience, and I thought that they were coming together but being done separately but no.... they wanted to have their session together....Cue pant-wetting fear... but took it in my stride as always, and thought, 'if I can trance one person then there is no reason that I can't trance two and set about putting them both in a lovely relaxed state'. The guy's name Anyhow, I got them both thoroughly relaxed and did a convincer on each of them which worked a treat.... so far so good. then I suddenly realised that I would only be able to work on one at a time in terms of questioning them, so I did something that I remembered Jennie doing on the fist dip, that was I turned my head physically towards the guy and said, ‘… when I am talking to Jamie... you will know because I will turn my head towards him like this, *turned head* and you will be able to hear that I am talking to him, and Jamie, when I turn my head like this, *turned to Alia* you will know that I am talking to Alia because it will sound like this.' I asked them both for an IMR in agreement and got one. So onwards we went, both of them meeting their guides, both of them going into the corridor between lives and then found their door with a light around it.... I began to panic just a little bit because I knew that this was when I would be leaving one of them to be suspended in their trance with their spirit guide person, and wouldn't be getting any input directly from me, so I kind of imagined/intended some kind of psychic lift/late night supermarket music and focussed on one of them while the other one was enjoying being relaxed. I think I said something like 'Alia, whist I talk to Jamie you will just continue to enjoy our trance, comfortable and drowsy and safe as you are, just enjoying feeling this way until I address you directly again' then set to taking Jamie through his first door. I can't remember the exact details but I remember it was around the 1950s and he was at a dance on a date and I asked who it was with and he said 'Alia' which I thought was sweet, I asked him some more details and went on to Alia who reported something different but around the same time period referring to Jamie as being the person she was with... In the early days of me doing past lives, I use to freak out a bit and run out of questions really quickly so found myself doing 2 or 3 past life experiences at a time to fill minutes. 

So I brought them to the next life, and then a third and in the second one Jamie reported being with Alia again, the the third, I was kind of expecting the answer to be 'Alia' again, and asked him who his significant other was, and he said Alia.... as I had thought, then I asked if she had been his partner in a lot of his past lives and he said 'Always Alia' then started to cry a bit, so did she, I have found this a lot, probably 95% of the past life clients I have seen- and there have been many!- end up crying, sometimes just a stray tear, sometimes bawling like a baby because they are 'just so happy!' usually, though sometime it has been for other reasons. I have pondered as to why and came to the conclusion that being in one’s own current life for a good few years is what we are used to, so being uprooted and plonked into the middle of what is your own, but essentially someone else’s life in all of five minutes, must feel at least overwhelming and probably very emotional as one would almost download a huge amount of information about their experience all in one go, that in itself would probably feel very overwhelming . 

Anyway, after their lovely trance where they had spent a majority of their past lives in each others' past lives, I woke them up and asked Jamie if he remembered what he had said about 'always Alia' and he said he did, but neither of them seemed that surprised, which I was a bit gutted about, I wanted it to be a magical moment where they realised they were true soul mates, but they just nodded and said 'yeah we figured as much, we feel like we have been here before, together' Anyway, it really moved me, and I had all kinds of feels when he said 'Always Alia' in that true blissful way that only a pleasant trance can make you feel.... It was a lovely experience and drawing on that, I often ask people if they feel that they know people in their past life experiences who are in their current lives and the answer is invariably yes....one woman I tranced had a servant who in her current life was her sister in law! That was all well and good until she told her sister in law that she used to be her servant lol, somethings are better kept to ourselves hahaha!

Reflective Journal Entries: Blushing and hyperhydrosis

From Tracy Jones, with thanks

A client contacted me for help with anxiety, causing blushing and hyperhydrosis. 

During the first session we found that she became anxious in situations where she felt ‘put on the spot’ and where she felt that all attention was focussed upon her, such as a group discussion where she was invited to speak. The symptoms were worse where men were present. During the session I explained the stress response, discussing the fight, flight, freeze response and how the mind works in two parts, the conscious and unconscious. The client also disclosed that she was in the process of leaving a relationship and beginning a new one and experienced difficulties in expressing her feelings, something that she felt was endangering her new relationship. She explained how she felt there was something blocking the words form coming out, while she spoke about this, she unconsciously placed a hand to her throat. The client also expressed difficulty in making decisions and seemed to have a lack of self belief, having to ask a multitude of people before deciding the best thing to do.

I conducted a new behaviour generator to address the decision making. I also used metaphor processing during the trance where she visualised a blockage of some sort in her throat (where she had pointed to in our discussion) and turned it into an object or form. I gave suggestions of how this may look, such as colours, or textures. I asked her to visualise it rising up in her throat and dislodging itself, eventually leaving her mouth and body completely. I then asked her to destroy it by using all of the elements. I asked her to visualise herself burning it until it turned to ashes, then throwing into a nearby stream which dissolved the ashes, leaving only dust which she buries in a hole in the ground. I then guided her to imagine seeing a vapour rising up and being carried away into the atmosphere until just pure energy was left floating in front of her. This represented the positive aspects that she could learn from the blockage which returned to her being, helping her in positive and beneficial ways. During the future pace we worked around seeing herself feeling more confident and believing in herself to make the right decisions for herself and her sons, as well as seeing herself expressing herself, as her words are important and valid.

After the session she told me how the metaphor processing had been very powerful for her. She has visualised a block of wood leaving her throat. She disclosed that in the past she had tried Reiki, and had been told that she had shakra blockages connected to her throat. She felt that the blockages had been removed during the session. She also told me how she had already begun to feel better at the beginning of the session as everything had made sense regarding the stress response and how it had turned into a vicious circle for her as she had become fearful of feeling anxious in some situations which made her more anxious and so on.

In the follow up appointment the client had made some excellent progress. She had been more able to express herself freely, she had made a couple of major decisions regarding her business and was questioning whether the new relationship was the right thing for her and her sons or more as a ‘crutch’ as she had been in a relationship for so long, she questioned if she had jumped into another in fear of the unknown, being alone.

In response to the positive feelings she experienced just from knowing that the stress response was causing her anxiety and the downward spiral she experienced in relation to being fearful of feeling anxious in certain situations, I felt that using methods to access the reasons behind the behaviour would be useful. It seemed that if the client was aware of the reasons why it was happening, she could reason with it and change her behaviour.

I decided to use affect bridge during the trance work to take her back to the first time she felt those feelings, getting to the root cause of them. I was quite wary of using this method in light of ‘false memory syndrome’, though felt that this may give the client the best chance of moving on, and knowing that with my advanced knowledge, I was aware of how to deal with a situation which may arise involving false memory.

I asked her to experience the feelings where she feels those symptoms of feeling her skin reddening, becoming clammy etc. She told me that she was at work, surrounded by men and they were all talking to her, asking her questions. She described how she felt hot and red, clammy, small, on the spot, all attention on her. I then asked the unconscious mind to take her back to an earlier time when she’d felt the same feelings. Suggesting that she may be younger during this experience. She told me how she was about 6 or 7, at school, in the girls toilets and a group of girls were pointing and laughing at her. She felt her skin becoming red, she had clammy palms and she felt embarrassed. I then asked the unconscious mind to take her back to the very first time she ever felt this way, again suggesting she may be even younger this time. She described how she was about 3 or 4 and in nursery when she’d been sat at a table with a group of her peers. She felt unwell and a boy had commented to the teacher that she wasn’t well. As everyone turned to look at her she vomited all over the floor. She described how she felt embarrassed as everyone watched her.

I explained that as a child she didn’t have the knowledge, skills and resources to be able to effectively deal with the discomfort and the emotions surrounding the situation. Though as an adult this is something that we can do, as we are more able to reason in these situations. I asked her adult self to give the child self a message which would make the child self feel better and deal with her feelings more positively. When I asked her to vocalise what this message was (I feared that this may be a crucial part of the therapy and may not be remembered out of trance) she told me that there was no verbal message, but instead a big hug to reassure the child self that everything was okay.

After the trance work she disclosed that during her childhood her parents had difficulty in physically showing affection. She said that she had remembered that day where she was ill at nursery, as her mother had collected her, there was no hug to comfort her. She told me that the session had given her exactly what she needed as she was now able to recognise where the issue had originated from and had been able to go back, giving the child self the physical reassurance she had needed.

I went on to re-enforce this. As she had given me her beliefs on the subject, I went on to say that when work like this is completed, the unconscious believes that the situation has, in reality been changed and the child self was given what she needed at that time, therefore this would now affect her behaviour in positive ways as the unconscious mind would begin to make her act as though the initial, anxiety provoking event had happened differently.

This client has taught me many things. Although she initially contacted me with hyperhidrosis , the real problem was more deeply seated and the excess sweating was merely a symptom. Initially I felt that the initial presenting problems should be addressed frist as this is the reason she had sought help. However, after meta questioning, she ad revealed that the immediate, pressing issues in her life were the difficulties with expressing herself which were endangering her new relationship, and the difficulty with decision making which she needed to address for the sake of her business. Therefore I decided to address these issues first as they needed immediate attention, knowing that the other issues could be addressed in a subsequent session.

I also learned that different clients respond well to different methods. From my perspective, I never thought of metaphor processing being a powerful tool in hypnosis, though for this client it went along well with her beliefs and past experiences with other therapies, therefore was very effective for her.

I also experienced the use of the affect bridge technique, which again proved very powerful for this client. I was able to recognise that this technique may suit the personality, beliefs and values of the client in order to bring successful change. I was also privileged to gain an insight into how experiences early on in life can have such a huge impact on life as an adult. The experience which had been affecting her in such a distressing way may be viewed as a simple, normal childhood experience which had many other individuals experienced, may have been forgotten about with the unconscious dismissing it as insignificant. However, for whatever reason, it was such of such significance to the client as a child that the unconscious had deemed it necessary to continue to protect her in similar situations for many years to come. After seeing this client I felt privileged and honoured to have been allowed such an insight into her life, and very fortunate to have gained so much knowledge, experience and enlightenment from our sessions.

She was extremely pleased with the service she had received and I felt much more confident in my skills as a practitioner as the client was full of praise for me, stating that she would recommend me to anyone and everyone. She told me that I had helped her 100%. This was amazing feedback, the feelings I had knowing that I had influenced someone’s life positively in such a way was phenomenal.

After conducting several hypnotherapy sessions now, I have noticed that a weak point that I have is timing. On reflection of the sessions I have done so far, I feel that I am taking too long during the initial questioning process. I find that much of the time, people have been holding back their feelings and emotions regarding the presenting issue, and as they have come to see someone who listens intently and is interested, asking questions etc, they feel relieved and are eager to ‘offload’. Also, I have found that many clients approach me with one primary issue, though during the beginning of the session, they disclose that they are struggling with many different areas of their life, or have various other problems they would like help with addressing. Although I think this needs to be encouraged, I feel that as a therapist, I need to filter the information out, finding the specifics of details I need to enable me to work effectively in the trance work. Also. I need to remember and to accept that not all issues can be addressed and solved in the first session, and in order to provide the best service to the client, subsequent sessions are normally needed.

I have discovered that I seem to allow the client to ruminate, and dwell on the negatives of the issues concerned for a bit too long! I recognise that I need to question more effectively in order to draw the information that I need from the client more concisely, before reframing it in order to use positive suggestions during the trance.

Now that I am more aware of these facts, I will be incorporating them into my sessions in the future. As I begin to see more clients, timing is an important factor in professional practice. If I have several clients in succession over a period of a few hours or a day, it would seem very unprofessional of me to be running hugely late. With life being so busy for many people, clients expect, and need appointments to be on time as much as possible, so I recognise that I need to progress in this area. I am becoming more accepting of the fact that it is often impossible to address several issues effectively and fully in a single session. This has been one of my mistakes in the past, though I am now learning to choose the most pressing issues to work on first, then accepting that others can be addressed in further sessions. My last case study shows that I am progressing in this area, as I chose to address the decision making and inability to express emotions during the first session, with a little work on the anxiety being done during the future pacing, then the anxiety was addressed mainly in the second session.

Reflective Journal Entries: Weight Control

From Tracy Jones, with thanks

A client came to me for help with weight control. During the meta questioning I felt that there were other issues that needed to be dealt with, though the client seemed reluctant to discuss anything other than the primary reason she had sought help with. She had mentioned her mother a couple of times during the questioning and I had picked up on unconscious body language and facial expressions that she had painful issues surrounding her mum. She later disclosed that her mum had recently died and I felt that she was struggling to come to terms with her mother’s death.

From my learning on the course so far, I realised that, as she wasn’t ready to ‘open up’ about the issue, though there may be ways in which I could help her. From our discussions, I had picked up that she had some spiritual beliefs so I decided that I may use this to an advantage when addressing the issues surrounding her loss.

As the session progressed, I addressed the primary issue she had asked for help with then asked her to speak freely in telling me what she felt she needed at the moment in order to deal with the issues with which she was presenting. She vocalized the word ‘Mum’. Using the information about her spiritual beliefs, I went on to talk about a bright light surrounding her which represents everything she currently needs and wants from her mum, giving some examples of what that could be, based upon the outcome she initially wanted to achieve. I described the light as becoming smaller until she could hold the ball of light in her hands. Then we progressed onto seeing the light as just a speck, almost like a firefly. I helped her to visualise the light moving into her heart. I went on to say that the light, although now only small, is a bit like the sun, in that it has many rays shining from it. This light and it’s rays represent everything that she needs and wants from her mum at the moment and always lives within her, a constant source of resources for her to access when she wants to.

This experience has taught me that although sometimes I may begin a session thinking that I know what the client needs, in this case, a weight control programme, sometimes there are undisclosed or hidden issues which may be connected to the primary issue. For this client it may have been that the weight loss treatment could have failed if the issues surrounding her present grief not been addressed. As the client had not openly admitted that she was struggling to come to terms with the loss of her mother, my advanced learning has given me the knowledge that she may not yet be ready to address this, though there are more covert ways of helping her with this by using techniques by which she isn’t consciously aware of me using.

Reflective Journal Entries: Blushing

From Tracy Jones, with thanks

Reflective Journal of practice:

One of my first clients presented with blushing. He explained that although he felt confident in his abilities at work, he found himself blushing profusely when asked to talk about the job either on a one to one basis or within a group. He told me how he becomes very stressed before and during meetings and also suffers the same symptoms during social gatherings.

During the meta questioning he told me that many male family members also displayed the same behaviour, including his sons. His mother and father had died at quite a young age.

As a new therapist, I took a while to decide the best intervention to use for his problems. He had explained that he had become fearful of blushing within these situations and I felt that the main problem was that he had almost become traumatised by the feelings he experienced in certain situations and this was affecting his ability to function effectively.

I decided to use the phobia cure, which I had thought was a strange technique to use as this was not a phobia, though I felt that because of his fear of these situations it may be successful if used with other methods too. During the trance I asked him to imagine himself in front of a cinema screen with a remote control in his hand. I asked him to remember one of the situations where he felt most affected by his symptoms. He played through the ‘film’ several times, each time changing it slightly, adding colour, making the picture bigger etc. As he appeared calm in trance during this, I asked him to play the film again, this time with him stepping into the screen. We then played it through again with him in the picture this time, noticing how his skin was of normal colour, feeling calm, relaxed, confident etc.

I went on to use a new behaviour generator as I felt, being a new therapist, not so confident in my abilities with the fast phobia cure, and wanted to give him the best chance of success. The future pacing was based upon the following two weeks where he had lots of meetings at work planned. I encouraged him to see himself in the meetings feeling confident etc.

After the session he reported feeling more relaxed than he had for a long time and told me he had slept really well that night where he had struggled to sleep previously due to worry and stress.

After a longer period of two weeks the client reported that he had felt more relaxed and less stressed, though the blushing problem remained.

In evaluation of my performance I felt that during the meta questioning I didn’t reach the root cause of the blushing in certain situations which for this client, may have been important. If he could have found out the reasons behind the problem, he could have possibly reasoned with them to come to a solution. I also felt that the therapy could have been more effective had I asked to see him for a second session. Being a new therapist I guess I felt ‘awkward’ at asking him to arrange a second session, taking up his time and money. I realised from this experience that for the therapy to work effectively I would always ask for a follow up appointment, and now, when perspective clients contact me, I always make it clear that two sessions at a minimum are required.

Also during the meta questioning, I think as a new therapist I felt reluctant to ‘pry’, not wanting to ask questions which may make the client feel uncomfortable. However, I realise now that to get to the bottom of issues, this is something which is often essential, and can be done in ways which minimise discomfort for the client and can provoke their thoughts on the subject, helping them to think about things differently.