Topics

• Anxiety
• Weight
• Guided Imagery

Anxiety as a Negative Trance

(This article originally appeared in the April/May/June issue of Open Exchange, 2009, p. 72.)

There are many different kinds of anxiety, ranging from mild free-floating feelings of unease to panic attacks.  Some people experience anxiety in response to understandable triggers (deadlines, illness, dysfunctional arguments), others in response to factors that can be harder to pinpoint, like a change in the weather, decisions, or general overwhelm.  For some, anxiety is a kind of background noise, continually present for no clear reason.   People who are chronically anxious have often been so since childhood, when they began to worry in response to stressful situations at home, in school, or in their community.

In almost all these cases, there is a history of negative experience and consequent beliefs.   The mind remembers (perhaps at an unconscious level) some negative event(s) and imagines something similar is going to happen again.  A negative projection about the future is made based on past negative experience.  This is another way of saying that anxiety is a bad habit in which the imagination, put to poor use, infects our more rational minds with fear.

Working on Your Own

Three Exercises to Interrupt the Anxiety Trance

Because anxiety largely originates from the imagination moving destructively between past and future, we can interrupt it by bringing the self firmly into the present moment.

• Breathe and Count
  The first step in reducing anxiety is to short-circuit the physical processes that go with it.   Whether you experience tightening of the chest, rapid heartbeat or a more elusive "hyper" or "suspended" feeling, you can reduce symptoms by breathing and counting from 1 to 3 on the in-breath, then 1 to 3 on the out-breath.   Keep breathing and counting till you feel a change.  Keep bringing your focus back to the numbers until your mind begins to settle and clear.  One client tried this at home and said, "I did it for a couple of minutes and it didn't work."  So I said, "Try it for ten minutes."  Be persistent.  It's impossible to be highly anxious and to breathe deeply and regularly at the same time!
   
• Do the "Five Senses Exercises." 
  Make contact with each of your senses, notice what each sense is registering outside the self and supply some detail for each sensory perception.  Ask yourself, What am I seeing?  What color or colors?   Oh, there's the desk, a honey brown, there's the tree outside, dark green.  What am I feeling?  I can touch the arm of the chair, it's fuzzy and warm.  I can touch the table, it's cool and smooth.  Go through all the senses in this fashion, then begin again if necessary.  This exercise brings one firmly into physical awareness of the moment.
  
  
• Reverse Negative Projections.
  If you are aware of the thoughts or beliefs triggering the anxiety, try repeating the opposite message to yourself.  So if you have the thought, "I'm going to flub my presentation and my boss will fire me,"  you would try the opposite: "I'll do fine and my job doesn't depend on one presentation anyway." Here's another example.  Right now many people are worried about their financial future.  If you have the thought, "The economy is going to continue to tank and I'm going to lose my job / never be able to retire," try the opposite, "The economy will eventually improve / I have or can acquire the skills I need to survive."

Of course, positive affirmations by themselves won't change the future, but they draw your attention to the imaginary basis of your fear.   After all, why believe a pessimistic story more than a positive one?  Since you're the story-teller, why not take charge and rewrite the script? By trying on more hopeful variations of the original thought, you can begin to see the made-up nature of all the tales you tell yourself. 

Working with a Hypnotherapist

Sometimes working on your own to "correct" negative self-talk simply doesn't work, even though you may be rational and persistent.  You may feel on a gut level that your pessimistic projection is more "likely" because of your experience in a certain area of life.  Returning to the example of weathering an economic downturn, someone whose parents experienced unemployment will suffer more anxiety than someone whose childhood was financially secure. An early researcher into stress, hypnotherapist David Cheek, M.D., theorized that severe stress causes an altered, hypnotic state of consciousness which encodes related problems and symptoms.  (See summary in E. L. Rossi, Psychobiology, 39-40).  In other words, stress and trauma cause us to go into a hypnotic state that preserves the feelings, thoughts and conclusions that occurred at that time.  This negative hypnosis can then be reactivated by subsequent stressful events. 

Because stress and trauma cause the mind to go into spontaneous trance, it makes sense to address chronic anxiety by going back into hypnosis to unravel and rewrite the code.

• Combining Affirmations with Hypnosis.
  So you've done the breathing and repeated positive messages to yourself and are still suffering.  When the deeper mind resists the light of logic, another approach is warranted.   Many people find that they achieve greater clarity and are more open to rational argument when in a hypnotic state.  Here again, persistence and repetition are key.  Remember, anxiety developed over time as a coping strategy, and it may take time to break the habit.  A good hypnotherapist will make you a personalized CD or audio file leading you into a trance and repeating the affirmations you need to hear.
  
  
• Regressing to the Origin of the Anxiety.
  One client of mine was experiencing general anxiety around work.  In a regression, she went back to some painful high school experiences, in which she'd been socially ostracized.  Assuming a punk persona, she had found herself repeatedly threatened with violence.   In hypnosis, she had the opportunity to rewrite these memories.  Using an imaginary pencil like the one in the child's story, "Harold's Purple Crayon," she drew herself a whole new world.  In her alternate reality, she went to an art school in Paris and spent time relaxing and painting by the Seine.  She experienced a feeling of release around work, which I was then able to reinforce with positive hypnotic suggestions.
  
  This kind of work is accessible to everyone.  People who have grown up with abusive or neglectful parents, without any positive relationships or experiences to draw upon, may find themselves creating alternate realities based on movies or even video games.  That's fine.  These fantasies, however playful or fantastic they seem, do serious work: they enable clients to contact some part of the self that is, in spite of everything, still healthy and capable of positive change.  Once accessed, that part can then be cultivated as a safe inner sancturary, the starting point of journey toward a more joy-oriented life.
  
  
• Using Guided Imagery For Blocks.
  Occasionally I work with someone who cannot uncover the cause of an anxiety pattern or phobia, even in hypnosis.  I had a client with a fear of traveling more than a few miles away from home.  Crossing a bridge and taking an airplane were out of the question.  She had a sense that her phobia had begun in high school but our attempts to understand it yielded no results.  So sticking to a more straightforward approach, we used hypnosis to practice imagery of her moving a couple miles from home, then a few more, and so on, interspersing that imagery with affirmations, memories, and fantasies of a positive nature. Thus we gradually increased her tolerance of moving farther from home and were able to free her of her phobia.

Hypnotic Strategies for Weight Reduction

(This article first appeared in the Oct./Nov./Dec. '08 issue of Open Exchange Magazine, p. 97).

People often ask me how hypnosis works for weight reduction or what my "program" is. The answer is that there is no set program because hypnosis is a flexible tool which I adapt to the needs, history, and temperament of each client. One person may overeat because of family history. Another learned to overeat in response to stress or anxiety. And yet another may eat in response to physical cues, such as PMS, fatigue, or pain. Each instance requires a different approach or combination of approaches. The starting point, however, is usual similar: learning to recognize eating triggers and then using the triggers as the starting point for investigation and transformation of the eating pattern. Here are examples of four processes that I often use: bargaining for portion control, stomach and taste awareness, regression, and aversion therapy.

1. Bargaining for portion control. Many clients hope to be "cured" with straightforward hypnotic suggestions. They want for me to put them "under," then "change their attitude" about food. While changing someone's relationship to food can rarely be done if that person assumes a completely passive role, it is reasonable to start with directive hypnosis, suggesting, for example, that a client eat two-thirds of her former intake. This may be effective if the unhealthy eating pattern was born merely of habit. Usually, however, the relationship with food is more complicated and the subconscious presents opposition. In that case, we can bargain with the resistant part of the personality by asking, what would you be willing to give that third up for? What do you really want? Sometimes this leads to a parts process in which the resistant part of the psyche dialogues with the part of the psyche that really wants to eat healthier and lose weight.

2. Stomach and taste awareness. People who are very overweight and eat continually throughout the day may have a loss of feeling in the stomach and a lack of taste awareness. When asked if they experience hunger, they say no, they don't. They aren't aware of how their food really tastes, either. I use hypnosis to lead the client into a relaxed state in which she can reconnect with the feelings in her stomach and her sense of taste. This approach has much in common with mindfulness-based approaches, in which clients come to experience more satisfaction from less food when more presence is brought to the act of eating. Sometimes, when awareness is brought to the stomach, there are feelings of tension, tightness or even nausea, which may lead us to do another emotional process in order to discover the emotions connected to that area of the body. On the other hand, one client of mine experience such a strong "stuffed" feeling in her abdomen that she immediately switched to a lighter diet.

3. Regression. Examination of eating triggers often leads to a regression session. For example, Susan could control herself during the day, but at night she ate compulsively. The trigger--a time of day, in this case--created a feeling of anxiety that could only be soothed by eating. Using that anxious feeling as our starting point, we did a hypnotic regression, asking her subconscious to take us back to when the pattern began. Susan went back to a time in her childhood when her mother began working a night-shift at her job. When she became upset at her mother's departure every night, her father distracted and soothed her by offering her seconds of dinner and serial desserts. This was an interesting case because Susan, a therapist herself, self-aware and intelligent, had believed that her eating patterns were tied to negative experiences with men. The regression showed her that the origin was different that she'd thought. Using guided visual imagery in hypnosis, she was able to talk to that part of herself, the "inner child," and explain that her mother still loved her and would be back soon. She visualized her adult self offering the child hugs instead of food. Susan was able to stick to her eating plan and begin losing weight after that session.

4. Aversion therapy. A client, Marion, described herself as addicted to chocolate cookies, which she waked up to eat in the middle of the night. She wished to give up this food choice completely. I led her into hypnosis and asked her to imagine a plate of cookies. Then I asked her visualize some revolting substance that she would never eat. (People may choose a non-food item or a distasteful food that was forced upon them as children, or a food that once made them sick to their stomachs. In any case, they don't need to tell me what it is.) I then asked her to imagine mixing the two substances together, so that the desired food was coated with the revolting substance. With Marion, this process worked immediately. These processes may all lead in to each other and be interwoven. The starting point is set by the emotions, issues and needs that are dominant in the client when he or she walks into my office.

Using Guided Imagery for Positive Change

(This article originally appeared in the April/May/June 2008 issue of Open Exchange Magazine, p. 97, under the title "Using Fantasy for Positive Change in Hypnotherapy")

Our lives are full of fantasy. We live in a perpetual daydream. The great spiritual teachers all seem to agree that if we could live in the present and give up illusion, we would be enlightened and filled with joy. The question arises: might be use the human talent to fantasize and daydream to be happier? Might we be able to use our imaginations to change the way we feel, process the past, and face the future?

This is exactly what we do in hypnotherapy. Guided fantasy, also known as guided imagery, is used to process past trauma and to reframe destructive thoughts and feelings about the self that may have resulted from the trauma. It is also used to change habits of projecting negatively into the future. Let me give an example from a case history.

A law school graduate named Linda (the name has been changed) comes to see me because she is dreading the upcoming bar exam so intensely that she can no longer study for it. She explains to me that instances of this kind of paralysis have become more frequent and intense as she has proceeded in her professional training. She tells me that she comes from a working-class immigrant family which exerted huge pressures on her to excel in all arenas and to represent her family and ethnic group positively. I lead her into hypnosis and we do what is called a regression--I ask her to go back in time to a moment when she first experienced anxiety similar to her exam phobia. She recalls having to play the violin at a school talent show when she was eight years old. Because she was a shy and self-conscious child, going up to the stage before a large crowd was torture. To make matters worse, her parents rebuked her severely afterward for playing a few notes incorrectly. Ever since then she has dreaded any kind of exam or public speaking in which her performance would be judged.

In hypnosis we have the opportunity to rewrite this kind of painful memory. We cannot change or erase trauma, humiliation, failure--but we can imagine an alternate, healing outcome. In this case, I ask my client--for people can speak while in a state of hypnosis--what she needs to turn this traumatic experience into a positive one. She says she wants to leave the school and go outside and sit in the playground. In her fantasy, she sees herself leaving the stage and going out to play for a while on the grass. There she experiences a deep state of relaxation. A beloved grandmother appears and Linda imagines them going back into the school auditorium together. She sees herself playing the violin confidently with her grandmother standing next to her. She makes the same small mistakes but this time her grandmother praises her for her hard work and accomplishment.

Of course, the fantasy doesn't change what happened--Linda still had an experience she found unbearably anxiety-producing. The way the process works is by inserting into the client's emotional field an alternate experience, in this case, one in which performance is linked to feelings of relaxation and support. When triggered by a challenge, Linda's subconscious will in the future have a place to go beside the traumatic incident in church--it can remember her experience of relaxing in the courtyard then playing confidently with her grandmother by her side. The fantasy drains the emotional charge from a negative memory by supplying a healing fantasy alongside it.

What makes this process so powerful is that the client herself, guided and supported by the therapist, supplies a "corrective fantasy" that is the exact remedy for whatever ails her. Used in this way during a regression, fantasy can activate aspects of the personality that were thwarted in childhood. The mind, at the deep level of the subconscious, gets to experience confidence, support, unconditional love--in short, whatever was missing from the original situation.

Linda and I continued to use guided visualizations to prepare her for her upcoming exam. Like most anxiety, Linda's was based on negative fantasies about what might happen--that she might fail, freeze, forget everything she had learned, and be humiliated. We worked on providing her with alternate projections for both the test itself and its outcome. She saw herself going to the exam wearing a protective bee-keeper's jumpsuit that would give her the privacy she needed to concentrate and also shield her from subsequent judgment if she failed. Because of the competitive nature of the bar exam, she did need to prepare herself for possibly failing and needing to retake it. We worked on increasing her self-esteem and helping her both to understand and feel that her self-worth was not connected to the outcome of the exam. Over a series of sessions she developed the image of the jumpsuit, adding pockets that contained a photograph of her supportive grandmother, positive messages and talismans. She regained her concentration, was able to study for her exam again and went into her exam with an excellent attitude.

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