Any Ideas?

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Permalink Reply by Roger Moore on September 16, 2009 at 8:55pm

Thanks Jonathan - this is the outside the box thinking I was hoping for. You are right, there has been great ideas. Much of which I had in mind had she continued. you are also correct, the recording was my standard Sleep Cd and i have no problem with her playing on the sound system in her bedroom with her husband. In fact, I had encouraged it for several reasons.

I will sleep on your tasking suggestion. I've done similar tasking in other situations, it hadn't occurred to me in this situation. I will keep you posted.

Thanks everyone for your input!

Roger

Jonathan Altfeld said:

I've seen some good advice offered here, and I've also seen some serious misinterpretation of what you originally wrote. I read the full original post and it seems to me a number of people are answering something other than what you wrote. E.g., I did not get the impression that you sent her home with a custom recording that she shared with her husband. I get the impression you sent her home with one of your pre-recorded titles. Which should be perfectly fine to share with a spouse.

Anyway -- a lot of good intentions clearly -- but I really recommend readers spend a little more time reading accurately.

One of the things that's rather clearly missing from options suggested... is a bit of Ericksonian tasking.

Your client seems to have a secondary gain resulting from not going to sleep. Your sleep suggestions clearly sparked some resistance -- which she's interpreting as "hypnosis not working."

So why not call her back and agree with her, and say "I totally agree, hypnosis clearly isn't working here, but I do have another solution that typically works a charm in situations like this. But I won't agree to offer you this common secondary approach... unless you agree to follow my instructions to the letter."

Then give her some kind of task(s) that pushes her more in the direction her mind has been taking her anyway, temporarily. Make her resist sleep rather than keep trying to get sleep. Have her do something at night when she should be going to bed... that will force her to stay up indefinitely. Make her dance for 30 minutes, or go for a 1-hour walk at midnight, when she would normally be laying down to TRY to go to bed. Or have her take an album she can't stand, and tell her she has to play that album beginning at 11:00pm, from start to finish, on a loud volume, and that for the entire time, she's not allowed to sit down -- she has to be standing the entire time. Make her do this for 5 nights straight, and tell her that AFTER she's followed these tasks to the letter, ALL of her sleep problems will be permanently gone, for all the right reasons.

In a case like this, I would suggest whatever task(s) you recommend should include (a) standing up with movement rather than sitting or lying down.. (b) at least an hour's worth of late night activity instead of bedtime. Two hours, even better. (c) involves loud noises that will help drown out her internal dialogue and make her yearn for creating a peaceful internal silence, and (d) keep her AWAY from the bed when she's having trouble sleeping -- she may have polluted her natural anchors for sleep by staying in bed when restless.

I know that sometimes you have to "deal with the problem." And, thanks to Uncle Milton, we also know that sometimes, we can assign indirect tasks... to train people to find their own reasons to justify wiring around the problem.

Just a thought.

- Jonathan Altfeld

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Permalink Reply by Fable Goodman on September 16, 2009 at 11:56pm

Sorry for late response... I slept in.

Sleeping better is pretty fundamental,
and as you say,
it is unusual not to get improvement, at the very least,
after the first session,
even more unusual to get this
alleged polarity response,

Like a few others who have posted,
I would imediatley be thinking of
some sort of secondary gain from keeping the problem,
and I would suspect it is something like a power stuggle,
between the man and wife.

I like the idea of prescribing the symptom.
(Which taking away the hypnotoic suggestion would in effect be doing.)
I would make sure that you charge her
for the session to do so, as it will be part of her therapy.

do the session with your usual love and respect for the client,
and thank her for the feedback.


LOve and hugs,

Fable

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Altfeld on September 18, 2009 at 5:06am

Roger Moore, PhD said:

I will sleep on your tasking suggestion.
Roger

Oh, what a wonderfully worded reply!!! ;)
- Jonathan

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Permalink Reply by Vince C on September 18, 2009 at 10:37am

According to Elman, a person in somnabulism will not go into sleep state. She may have been in somnambulism or probably Esdaile in your chair and (here is the big clue) when she emerged and was still suggestible, she did the opposite of your suggesting to be awake.

(I had an engineer recently who upon my suggesting that a 5 lb weight was pressing on down on his hand, he lifted his hand--reverse suggestibility!)

Also, it seems that she is also doing the opposite of what you are suggesting in the CD.

You might want to give her opposite suggestions. i.e. "You TRY to stay awake all night long! or change your suggestions to INDIRECT post hypnotic.

(and if you are able to get her back into your chair, make sure to test if she is asleep, somnambulism, or esdaile)


I hope that helps

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Permalink Reply by Vince C on September 18, 2009 at 10:57am

another clue that she took the suggestion in reverse is that she got worse.

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Permalink Reply by Graham Old on September 18, 2009 at 12:13pm

Is she perhaps anxious about resolving this issue, due to some secondary gain?

Cynthia could you please explain (or signpost) further what you mean by Waterfall Cleansing suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by Graham Old on September 22, 2009 at 7:43am

Thanks, loads!

graham

Cynthia Cameron said:

Hi Graham,
The way in interpreted Roger’s post was that she may came back for a further session.

The script that came to mind was Paul Durbin’s Waterfall Cleansing and Hands to Face therapy. Check out his website as it a wealth of informative information as well as scripts.

Waterfall Cleansing Script by Chaplain Paul G. Durbin, Ph.D.
http://www.durbinhypnosis.com/visualizationimagery.htm#WATERFALL%20...

Hands to Face Therapy by Chaplain Paul G. Durbin, Ph.D.
http://www.durbinhypnosis.com/script.htm#HAND-TO-FACE%20FOR%20THERAPY:

It may be an indirect way of working with her to release whatever has caused her to react the way she has.

I agree with Roger that a 4-6 session program would be the way to go to get the results she is after.

Hope this helps,
Cynthia

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