Nail Biting?

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Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on February 10, 2010 at 4:45am

If there's an emotional / compulsive component to it, then use whatever method you would use to locate / de-potentiate the basis for the negative emotions, then apply the above process.

Hi John,

Good to see that you are becoming aware of patterns of behavior --

I really liked Adrian's advice and will simply offer an Alternative to locating the basis of Negative emotions... Simply focusing a client's attention on and having them get in touch with and feel their toxic emotions and feelings is all that is necessary for releasing them . Example - You can easily de-potentiate them with the Ellner/Barsky Detox --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7xp-hacrwo

Then apply Adrain's approach below:

Adrian Tannock said:

Hi John,
I take the view that these types of behaviours (nail-biting, bruxism (although there are physiological considerations here), hair-pulling, skin picking, etc, etc) are a combination of:
- habit - behaviour that persists due to repetition.
- shedding anxiety or other difficult emotions.
- and sometimes, with nail biting, a compulsive need to improve appearance (perhaps reflecting an Alderian-style "inferiority complex").

Sometimes it's just a dry habit - no real emotional compulsion. In these cases, you can:

- Use the "fast phobia cure" on their visualised representation of them doing the nail-biting behaviour until they feel completely detached from it (the visualisation no longer tries to associate them into it, it stays in colour, it stays stable in front of them - dispense with the cinema component, just have them do the visualisations on a 'screen' in front of them).

- Elicit the submodalities of a visualised representation of "a past behaviour they no longer do" and then ascribe those submodalities to the (by now fast-phobia'd to hell) representation of the nail biting. Repeat this for a couple of minutes, so the new submodalities "stick".

- Use a classic swish (associated picture of biting nails > dissociated picture of them with nice long nails).

- Then a bit of hypnotic suggestion at the end.

(This process works on most habitual behaviours, including smoking, providing there's no great emotional compulsion behind the behaviour).

If there's an emotional / compulsive component to it, then use whatever method you would use to locate / de-potentiate the basis for the negative emotions, then apply the above process.

Cheers,

Adrian

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Permalink Reply by John Cleesattel on February 10, 2010 at 6:25am

John,
I have had great success with nail biting clients just using the part therapy technique. The judgmental mind controls behavior, so that is the place that change to the behavior will be enabled.

I hope this helps you
John Cleesattel

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Permalink Reply by David Mason on February 10, 2010 at 7:12pm

There is a complete hypnosis script for Nail Biting (and a tutorial of how to write one) at


http://www.hypknowsis.com/SC10_NailBitingHypnosisScript.html


Dave Mason
www.hypknowsis.com

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