Case Studies
These are only a few case studies, chosen to highlight the many different ways that patients are helped to overcome their habits, fears, or other issues that life throws at them. The cases below have been chosen to illustrate the general idea of what you can expect from therapy. Although there are many similarities between us, each of us is completely unique and, therefore, no case is ever exactly the same as another. Names have been changed for privacy purposes where requested.
Therapy: Hypnotherapy
Presenting Issue: Weight Loss
Tracy had a weight problem. She had tried every diet she could and constantly found she put the weight back on again. In hypnosis she discovered that psychologically she felt a need to be ‘big’ in order to protect herself and her family. Once she recognised this, and realised it was obviously not true (although once it perhaps had been), she has been able to steadily lose weight. She realised afterwards why, when she tried to visualise herself at her desired weight, she always felt a vague sense of panic.
In subsequent sessions we dealt with a few other issues, led entirely by her own inner mind letting us know where healing was needed. Most of these had little to do with her weight. She found herself letting go of anger and bitterness she had held onto for a long time and is beginning to like herself a lot more. Not only her new-found waistline, but her rediscovered inner warmth and caring for others. Essentially, she was able to give herself 'permission' to be slim and ended her self-destruct cycle.
 Therapy:Counselling / Hypnotherapy
Presenting issue: Parent / teen relationship
Diane was going through a particularly difficult time with one of her children. Their relationship, it turned out, had always been thorny, and now that he was becoming a teenager things were getting out of hand. We were able to trace the problem to her own feelings of rejection. Right from the start she had felt her gentle personality being ‘over-powered’ by her son’s strong extroverted qualities.
To compound the difficulty, her son had gradually lost respect for her and what he saw as her ‘inability to cope with life’. This, of course, led to more feelings of rejection and inadequacy on Diane’s part. The situation took time to change. Diane’s self-esteem had to be built up – based on a reality that she could genuinely stand on. She gradually learned to trust her own judgement. She knew she was succeeding when, one day, she was about to phone a friend for advice and she thought to herself “No! I don’t need to! I know the right thing to do and I trust myself! ”
Teenagers are not always easy to handle (understatement of the year?). Diane’s son was no exception and with the complexity of their relationship there was a lot of work to be done. Diane was able to win back his respect simply by believing in herself and standing firm in her own principles and values. She learned to treat him with love and not to respond from her own sense of rejection. It was hard for her, and she needed a great deal of support, but they now have a wonderful relationship based on open communication, mutual respect and understanding.
Therapy: Personality Profiling / Goal Setting / Hypnotherapy
Presenting issue: Direction for the future
Karen came to see me because she was very unhappy in her job and needed clear direction as to what steps to take next. She could not afford to be without an income, but she desperately wanted to do something more fulfilling. She was going through an early mid-life crisis, although she did not know it. It is typical for a woman aged 36 plus to go through a time when she feels she needs to ‘find herself’. Having given so much time to family and, possibly, career, she finds she doesn’t really know herself. She begins to thing “what to *I* want from life? Where am I going?”
I worked with Karen through a number of modalities.
We began with a full personality profile, which highlighted the character traits which most needed to find fulfilment – in her case she had a clear need to search for truth and she had a strong leadership gifting.
We then worked on her abilities, experience, talents, and interests to narrow down the areas which would suit her best in terms of career and personal life.
She read a few selected texts, and we discussed various options. She found that, with my understanding of personality, I was able to point out where some options would probably not suit her and she would easily become bored and feel stifled.
In the end Karen made a choice she later said she ‘would never have thought of’. She remained in her well-paying career in finance, although she changed employers so that she would not be so pressured and have some free time available. She then began to do volunteer work with a possible view to building up to one day running her own volunteer establishment. The fulfilment it gives her allows her to see her day job as having a purpose other than to ‘just survive’ from day to day.
Although she did not change careers, as she at first thought she needed to do, she found a sense of purpose. She knows *what* she is and *who* she is, which is far more important what she *does*.
Therapy: Hypnotherapy / EFT
Presenting Issue: Fear of Flying
Lee had a fear of flying in aeroplanes. He had managed to avoid flying for some time, but was now facing a business trip that required air travel. He did not want to have to tell his boss that he was to afraid to fly!
After the first session he felt he was ready to jump aboard the next flight. As is often the case, we discovered that his fear was not actually of flying, but of drowning! As aeroplanes often fly over water, his fear was of crashing somewhere over the ocean. We did not have time to delve into deep regression sessions before his flight, so we dealt purely with the fear and taught him some techniques to use.
When the time came to catch his business flight, he said that he felt slightly nervous – as if his mind was telling him “aren’t you supposed to be afraid now?” – but he used the self-hypnosis techniques he had learned to enable him to enjoy a calm, relaxed and enjoyable flight! Since then he has conquered both the fear of water and the fear of flying through regression techniques.
Therapy: Counselling / Transpersonal Therapy / Spiritual Healing
Presenting issue: Depression, loneliness
Lenor was a divorcee who came to see me because she was lonely and depressed. In the first session we uncovered a massive amount of anger, which surprised her as she is a generally passive and easy going person and had not even realised it was there. When she was able to face this buried anger, however, and deal with it positively, she began to see a rapid change in her outlook. She was encouraged to find more outlets for her creativity and hidden talents. Over time she was able to face other, less significant, issues in her life and move on in an attitude of forgiveness. She also began a deeper spiritual walk. Today she is happily remarried, and a very different person from the miserable lady I first met.
Therapy: Hypnotherapy
Presenting Issue: Fear of Death
Ann had a dreadful phobia about death and could not even mention the subject. During therapy she visited some marvellous spiritual places and found herself on a whole new path of discovery. She now has no qualms talking about death and finds the whole subject intriguing rather than frightening. Interestingly, many people discover that their obsessions and phobias are rooted in a fear of death. This is probably one of the easiest fears to deal with if the person is able to open their minds to spiritual concepts.
Therapy: Hypnotherapy, EFT
Presenting issue: Fear of Failure
John just wanted to know what hypnotherapy was like, but he asked for work on a mild 'fear of failure'. He got some interesting results thrown into the bargain! We did some basic confidence-boosting, he kicked out a few limiting beliefs and visited some pleasant (and a few unpleasant) memories.
As a direct result of therapy, he has taken up a sport he ‘always wanted to play’, and says he has a greater enthusiasm for life.
Therapy: EFT and Hypnotherapy
Presenting issue: Agoraphobia
Greg, like many agoraphobics, had reached a place where he was unable to leave his home. I went to see him in his home and after the second session a few rounds of 'tapping' had him outside looking around and doing some work in the garden. This was something he had been quite unable to do for many months without having a panic attack, which usually included sweating, heart palpitations and hyperventilating with extreme fear controlling him.
Greg was able to gradually get over many areas of his past which he had never dealt with, and regain his confidence in life. His therapy included eliminating certain foods from his diet which were causing him to feel depressed and anxious. After seven or eight sessions of hypnotherapy combined with EFT and counselling, Greg was able to return to work and regained the lost years. He now finds it hard to remember how it felt when he was "stuck at home fearing to go out of his own front door".
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