Hypnotherapy and other stuff

[intothewoods]

It really varies so much person to person. I do recreational stuff with other people, but I do some self-hypno and use recorded sessions because I'm a control freak and I can scan them and understand what's being done to me before I decide to chill out to them.

I don't think that some meditations about phobias in general could hurt that you could use on your own in conjunction with what I'd call better therapy.

But just as there's a lot of bullshit in the alternative medical world, so there is a lot of bullshit in the medical world as well. You are the person who knows how productive or not productive any path of inquiry is - I question the value of therapies that are constantly in search of causation and not the here and now. (I like CBT for this reason)

I made HUGE inroads on a flight phobia when a CBT oriented therapist asked me "so what's the worst that can happen?" And I described my vision of firey splat from great height, and she said "and what can you do about that?" -- NLP can sometimes do the same thing for people, but everyone's mind latches onto different ways of containing an idea, so what works for one person won't for another as well.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. Meditation and self-guided hypnosis certainly won't hurt.

And I agree that there are no guarantees about the medical world -- there are plenty of bad doctors, and doctors who aren't particularly guided by evidence and studies . My own experience has been that it helps to ask a lot of specific questions about what the research shows, and also to get a second opinion or recommendation from someone you trust.

Finally, I think we're less able to quantify and measure psychology. There is certainly plenty of research and evidence, but it's not as clear as, say, does medicine x treat heartburn effectively.

 

[DVS]

You say your phobias are silly, but aren't they all? I have panic attacks triggered because I can't breathe from my nose. Why should that be a problem, when I can freely breathe through my mouth? But, because of this, I become a germ-a-phobe during cold and flu season, because catching a cold would be almost impossible to handle. And I have 24/7 allergies that hinder my breathing with symptoms very similar to a cold, as well as a deviated septum. These don't help my breathing, either.

I have general anxiety disorder. It runs in my family, but mostly on the female side...lucky me, I'm the only male that has it. For some reason, the nose thing is just my trigger. Everybody has their own. I have claustrophobia so I'd guess it could also be related. Man, my family is such a mental mess!!

But, as silly as they seem to outsiders, our phobias are very real to us. So, this picture thing is real to you. I don't have a lot of pictures of myself through the years, but it's only because I just don't make the effort to get one taken. So, there are only the few others may take of me at Thanksgiving, Christmas gatherings, etc.

As for hypnotherapy, if it works, why not try it? Of course, I'd make sure you get a reputable therapist to do this, so you don't end up being the comic relief at parties, clucking and doing the chicken walk when someone says a word everybody but you knows about.

And I'm a control freak. I have to be in control of my life. There are so many things that we can't be in control of and they all bother me, almost to the result of sleepless nights. I'm sure the panic attacks are related to this, too. I wonder how well any kind of hypnotherapy would work on me, or maybe if it did work, for how long.

Netzach brought up doing this to yourself. I didn't know this was possible or really safe. I'd love to look into that, if I could maybe lessen my phobia about breathing through my nose. My life would change immensely, if I could. I'm REALLY bothered by letting someone else take such control of me, so I wonder if I could even be hypnotized.

I've also heard a hypnotist can't get you to do something you wouldn't do on your own. If it's not in your personality to do something, or your desire to change something, it isn't going to happen.

That goes a long way in how well it works. I might look deeper into this, myself. I just don't want to be that party favor clucking chicken I talked about, above. With my personality, I would be such a good clucking chicken, I'm sure.

 

[shy slave]

I agree with you DVS on the point about the issues of phobias. They don't have to make sense to others, just to the person concerned. Then again, yours makes sense, after all breathing is an essential aspect of life.

I have tried hypnotherapy, twice. The first time meant I could have wedding photos taken and have people look at them. Looking back now I was pretty at 18, but at the time it was terrifying.

The net has made my phobia worse, the second bout of hypnotherapy was a highly qualified, GP recommended one. They brought out memories which I am not convinced are real memories. Much has been written on 'recovered memory,' and it does seem most is not real.

My phobia grew slowly. I was attacked when I was 12, as very innocent Catholic girl I was unable to answer questions about what happened as the police used words I had no knowledge of - penis, erect, anus, vagina etc etc. This was the early 1980's so rape suites and trained police did not exist. I was examined on my own bed by someone and they could not be sure if rape had happened. The offshoot was they knew who he was. He wasn't prosecuted (not sure why not), but photos of me were found in his room (he was a man in his 30's and lived with is mother). My mind latched onto the photos, not the 'was I raped' element.

The second hypnotherapy session 'found' an additional attack a week later by the same man. I recall I saw him after the first attack but had no spontaneous memory of a second attack. I never knew how many photos he had of me, and at the time had no idea why he had them. But the second session brought out that he had several, I would not have known that; hence I am not convinced.

The second session made things far worse. On my second wedding I was close to vomiting, not because I was getting married but the thought of the photos.

I no longer trust or respect hypnotherapy and would not consider returning to one to help me deal with this.

The obsession the net has brought out on an international scale to see photos of people has only made things worse.

I have been dating people on the net since 2004. On rare times I will send a photo of me, which is now actually six years old. Any man who says they thought of me and masturbated is instantly cut off from all communication. I know many would consider that a compliment but it makes me feel ill to think someone would think of my photo and do that. I am not stunning, an average 45 year old. If they want to do that buy a porn magazine.

It is not because of people on the net I want to deal with this, but because I realise I would like to have photos taken of my son and I together. I have only a handful of him and his brother with me during their childhood and since his brother died it has made me increasingly aware I would have liked to capture more moments of our time together.

Because I know where this stems from, it makes Netz suggestion appealing, I don't want to go back over an attack that happened over 30 years ago any more than I want to relieve the past few years of grieving for my son. I would hate an inept idiot to tangle my mind between the two events, as they are not related; but as I said I no longer trust that process.

Sending my photo to people was a huge deal for me, having a picture taken and then putting on that other site another step in a positive direction.

Hmmm that says a great deal. Kudos to anyone who read it all

 

[DVS]

I read it all and I understand it all, too. The human mind is a vast area of unexplored grey matter for the most part. It's said we can talk ourselves out of or into most anything, as long as we are determined and feel safe in the process. That's what got my attention with self hypnosis. I don't know if I could trust someone else to do it, so I also understand your thoughts about that, too.

It's strange how the mind works. I have three sisters. Two are retired teachers, so neither of them are unaware of systems of learning, and other related things. One was a special ed teacher, so she has even more in-depth knowledge of learning disorders that some people can have. The other is a music teacher, but she went on and got her master's degree in music therapy, so both of them are sensible people although I sometimes wonder about it, at times!

The music teacher will NOT eat seafood. She won't eat lobster or crab or shrimp, and NEVER HAS. I'm not sure about regular fish, but maybe that, too. The reason she won't eat seafood and never has? She doesn't like the way they look. Not how they look in a dish, but how they look when they live in the sea. Sure, some lobsters and crab are served in the shell, but it isn't necessary. Still, because she knows how they look, she won't even taste them. Shrimp is one of my favorite foods, as is crab meat. I also like lobster, but all of them are rather expensive, so I don't eat them that often.

This reminds me of an old "Leave it to Beaver" episode where Beaver didn't want to eat okra his mother had prepared (yes, I love those old shows). He had never had it before, and he didn't want to eat it, just because he thought he would throw it back up, if he did. To make a long story short, he did eventually eat okra, and he ended up liking it. When I watch that episode, it makes me think of my sister and her dislike of this seafood, just because of how it all looks. She might very well enjoy these foods, if she would only try them, but it ain't gonna happen. People can be so weird.

 

[Netzach]

A good hypnotherapist (I'm not one just a reading maniac) will give a subject who isn't happy about being "under someone else's control" a lot of reassurance and a lot of control of their own experience - a more participatory way to go into a trance state, or forget about trance states altogether (some theories out there that this isn't even necessary or important, it just gets people's focus)

I'm also someone who's completely turned off to being under someone's control in that way, but I find that being able to mitigate the experience with a recording makes me more comfortable.

Shy, if you abreacted around a memory, actual or imagined, they should have been doing damage control in a huge way - it sounds like that didn't happen and that's so bad.