Hypnotherapy Case Studies
During my years of practising as a hypnotherapist, I have had the privilege of helping thousands of people to solve their problems. I am honoured that someone has come to me to help them with an important aspect of their life. I am not being asked to supply a bag of potatoes or a pair of socks but to change their quality of life to some extent.
The case which stands out the most concerned a lady of 42 years. She suffered from agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces. She had been a prisoner in her own home for more than four years, as soon as she took more than two steps outside her front door she would have massive panic attack (various medicines and drugs had no effect).
It was one of the very few occasions where I made house calls. On the completion of therapy I accompanied her into town and when we returned she cried for the wasted years and said that she wished she had known about me all those years ago and why isn’t hypnosis available on the NHS?
A lady, I’ll call her Joan, had a sister who lived in Canada whom she hadn’t seen for about 40 years. Joan had bought a flight to Canada many times but when it was time to board the plane she was overwhelmed by fear and sadly she had to return home. Following therapy she purchased a ticket and the day she was due to fly there was a security alert at Heathrow. She said there were armoured vehicles and armed police swarming all over the place but it hadn’t fazed her and she actually enjoyed the flight. She also discovered that her fear of lifts had gone.
Another lady was told by her boss that she had to give a 20 minute presentation to colleagues about a new line of sportswear they were stocking. Just the thought of speaking brought on a panic attack and she seriously considered injuring herself so that she would be hospitalised on the day. After a few sessions she gave the presentation and she said she had felt confident. Her boss confided in her that she had been too terrified to give the presentation herself!
Other common phobias are; mice, spiders, injections, heights, lifts and enclosed spaces.
Some of the more unusual phobias that I’ve helped clients release are; noise (phonophobia); vomiting (emetophobia); feathers (pteronophobia); floods (antiophobia); and lightning (astraphobia).
A young man, I’ll call him John, told me that he could only eat potatoes if they were mashed to a pulp, the slightest lump would make him heave. This hadn’t been a problem until his first serious girlfriend invited him to have Christmas lunch with her family and of course roast potatoes are a must. In regression we discovered that when he was 5 years old he was having dinner with the family, there was a lot of laughter and piece of potato stuck in John’s throat and almost choked him. His father held him upside down and his mother thumped his back – a very traumatic experience for a 5 year old but John had no conscious memory of this incident.
John enjoyed the Christmas lunch, particularly the roast potatoes! This is a classic example of the subconscious remembering an event and responding as if circumstances were the same. It would continue to play the same programme until it was changed. The intention was good but the behaviour was bizarre.
Sometimes during regression to childhood I’ll hand a client a pen and paper and ask them to write their name and address. At the end of the session they are amazed to see that the writing is childlike and nothing like their adult hand.
One client, I’ll call him Jim, said that he could not drive at more than 30mph even on motorways. After a few sessions nothing had changed and I suggested past life regression and he agreed. The time was the English Civil War, (1642 – 6) he was a royalist and he was being chased by Cromwell’s roundheads. His horse was galloping as fast as it could and he was leaving the chasers behind, when it stumbled and Jim was thrown. The roundheads caught him and killed him. Jim’s subconscious believed that excess speed was dangerous. Did the event really happen? Was it just Jim’s imagination? During the next few weeks, Jim’s driving went up to 70mph on motorways. I’ll let you draw your own conclusion.
The majority of clients I’ve helped are smokers. I believe if smokers could see the damage smoking is doing inside their bodies the vast majority would stop. A 20 a day smoker accumulates one litre of tar in their lungs every year. In 2009 almost 1.5 million people were admitted to hospital with smoking related illness. I know that statistics mean very little unless, of course, you are one of the statistics. A study undertaken by the University of Washington’s School of Medicine reported a 90.6% success rate for smoking cessation using hypnosis. This is way beyond the success of any other method.
Perhaps you have a problem that I haven’t mentioned but you can still be helped.
Belief plays a big part in hypnosis. If you think I can help you or you think I can’t, you’re probably right.
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