BEREAVEMENT THERAPY

Comment

Comment by Linda Roan on December 20, 2009 at 8:11am

Hi Paul:

I luv your reminder to be careful of the facial shifts and the prayer is beautiful. I have included prayers in my hypnosis but I let the client lead me into the wording because its not always easy to tell if someone is Christian or not. I find many clients are spiritual or want to be more spiritual but if they display uncertainty of the name they want to give their beliefs I always use the word Universe or Universal Love.

When they lead me and I follow to a discussion of prayer they sometimes conveythe word prayer is not strictly what they mean I refer them to the work of Larry Dossey

Linda

Comment by Kelley Woods on December 19, 2009 at 3:53am

Paul, I integrated your 2 Choice process with a client recently and it worked marvelously! The session involved peeling away several decades of layers of loss and grief and the final episode featured both the Adult and Child contemplating and anticipating the JOY of the next morning. Thank you so much; you helped change a person's life! :) Kelley

Comment by Kelley Woods on December 16, 2009 at 6:36am

Paul, I love your approach. 2 choices, either of which is compelling. I'm off to read your Brief Grief. Thank you so much for sharing! Kelley

Comment by Kelley Woods on December 16, 2009 at 5:59am

Thank you, Paul. I agree wholeheartedly with the need to redirect to JOY. It seems most all hypno paths lead to that desired destination. I love your Christmas Grief idea; I had two calls just yesterday involving that issue as this is the season that it rears its emotional head...perhaps you would share some more of your insights in my discussion above?
Regards, Kelley

Comment by Marianne Robson on December 2, 2009 at 11:21am

A warm welcome to those of you who have recently joined. Wow, while I was away the group reached and exceeded 20 members - great! There are so many people who can benefit from all our experiences with loss of any kind; even if we make the occasional mistake, as long as we learn from it, it will eventually benefit someone. There is nothing more rewarding than to see a tormented person slowly revive and regain hope after a terrible blow. Thank you for all the great discussions so far, and keep them coming!

Comment by Marianne Robson on November 4, 2009 at 8:46pm

Lee, I feel really inspired by your contribution to the Bereavement Therapy group - thank you so much for taking the time to write! As a beginner in hypnotherapy, and someone who wants to specialize in the field of blockages due to loss, your insights are invaluable; I am convinced that they are equally important to those already practising. Hopefully others in the group will reply to your wonderful piece!

Comment by Lee Pelletier on November 4, 2009 at 6:17am

Bereavement, grief and sadness come in so many forms. When I am working with a client who has suffered a loss, or with a client who has received a life altering diagnosis, I have been learning that following Erickson's dictum to use what the client gives you as your starting place an invaluable rule. When we deal with people experiencing loss in its varied forms it is easy to lose track of the meaning of that loss to the client when you start with your own ideas. As Ed Lester said, helping the client gently to reframe is essential. It is easy to think you know what the client wants. Sometimes we can be guilty of assuming that the client wants one thing when in reality it is something else. As I think of that, I am reminded of Jesus' interaction with a blind beggar named Bartemaus. Bartemaus cried out to Jesus for help. Many of us would assume that he would want healing of his blindness. Jesus, however, did not assume anything. Instead, he asked Bartemaus what he wanted. Then, after Bartemaus asked for his sight, Jesus healed him.

As we meet our clients in their model of the world, it helps so much to ask them what is in their lives now that they don't want. Then, let the client answer in their own words, their own way. Then repeat to them what they have said in our own words to make sure we have understood correctly. Then we ask them what they would like to have in their lives instead. Again, we feed back their answer to them in their own words, asking them to frame it in a way we can use hypnotically. Then use their thought in our hypnotic work.

It might go something like this: H: What do you have in your life that you want to change, get rid of, or deal with? C: I want to get rid of this sadness and pain over the loss of my brother, so I can get on with my life. Sometimes I hurt so much I want to die. H: So, if I am hearing you correctly, you have a great deal of pain about your brother's death, and you want the pain to go away, is that right? C: Yes, that's right. It is not that I want to forget my brother, it is just that it hurts so badly. H: What do you want to feel? When you talk about getting on with your life, what do you mean? C: Well, as I said, I will always miss my brother. I really want to feel better though. I want to miss my brother without being shut down by the grief. H: What do you think it will be like when you have that feeling of missing your brother without being shut down by the grief? C: Well, I don't know exactly, but at least I can go to work and be productive. And I can be nicer to my family. And, I can start doing things so I will be there for those I love. H: OK, so if I have this right, you find it hard to go to work, and to work effectively when you are there. You are also having trouble with your family right now, because they are getting the brunt of the irritability and sadness. And you want to start taking care of yourself.

That pretend dialog is just an example of a way of getting to the what and the why of the client before us. Then, I begin to build the hypnotic plan. It is my "job" to help the client get what he or she wants, and is asking for (unless it is self-destructive). In hypnosis, I feed back again to the client what they want, and begin to ask the subconscious mind if it is willing to help the client to heal. I don't need to tell you how I do that. You know how to do hypnotic work.

It is important to remember that the pain of grief is at least as great, and occasionally greater than the pain of surgery, childbirth, amputation, serious injury or any other organic or traumatic physical malady. Therefore, it is going to take time and process to heal. Therapeutic metaphors like the sailing vessel are marvelously helpful in that process. So is building a lot of don't want/wants. As some things clear up, others may show up. Times of grief are very "low resource" times for our clients. There is a need to get them to do things to build resources, even when they may not want to. It is important for them to follow good nutrition practices and to drink plenty of fluids. It is important for them to get strenuous physical activity. These things will reinforce our hypnotic work. Ask them what has fed their souls in the past. What have they found useful/joyous/pleasurable. As they do that, their systems do recover. As with healing from illness or injury, healing does come to the person in grief. As with injury, sometimes something has to be "reset" for health to come. Please be flexible in dealing with grief. I have walked through grief myself with 5 immediate family members' deaths. I have also walked through grief and loss with dozens of families as a clergyman. I do so now as a hypnotist. I am sure that this wonderful community can expand upon my thoughts here and we can find ways to help clients more effectively.

Comment by Ed Lester on November 3, 2009 at 7:18pm

For terminology, I say use the language the client uses. And if it's negative help them to GENTLY reframe it.
Looks like you're all doing a fantastic job and this is a very valuable community. Well done guys for getting it going like this. I know a lot of people will eventually benefit from the discussions and views being exchanged here.

Comment by Marianne Robson on November 3, 2009 at 6:21pm

I stand corrected, Michael - and yes, you are of course absolutely right, terminology is such an important part of positive thinking! Thank you for sharing your experience.

Comment by Michael Ellner on November 3, 2009 at 3:23pm

Hi Marianne,

I'd recommend dropping terminally ill if one is helping clients with life-threatening illnesses--

FYI-

I have extensive experience helping people with life-threatening diseases and conditions and some want help making peace with death and dying --Others want help coping and living as fully as possible.

My advice is keep hope alive -- Joy, pleasure and satisfaction promote healing and survival and play up the benefits and advantages of the program that you are offering as a first class self-healing protocol -- Reducing fear, tension and discomfort reduces stress and reducing stress slows down the progression of all health challenges. Explain that our bodies are not able to heal or restore metabolic balance when we are in stressed states and our inner doctors do so automatically when we are in "rest and digest states"

When I met Emmy award winning actor Michael Zaslow - ALS had laid waste to his body. He wrote me note saying that he wished that he had AIDS... I wrote back: "???" He wrote that he had heard that I was helping people survive AIDS and NO ONE SURVIVES ALS!!! I looked him in the eye and wrote back: "Perhaps you will be the first" It brought a tear to his eye and we discussed how I could help him help himself.

I helped him to focus on what he could do and what he still could enjoy instead of focusing on what he lost or the horror that he was facing... I taught him how to move into resource states and we created a state where he could appreciate what he lost from the point of view that he could still appreciate all that he had had.

Michael lived a full, active, pleasurable and satisfying life -- even though his physical condition continued to deteriorate daily during the last year of his life... Several weeks after Zaz's death - I got a call and was told I was mentioned in his last interview (Soap Opera Weekly) - Asked how he dealt with the intense fear and stress he answered: "I have a secret weapon - Michael Ellner and QUANTUM FOCUSING"

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