Names and identifiable details have been
changed in order to protect client confidentiality.
John was 42 years old when I saw him. He said he was unable
to use trains or the tube (metro). He had no problems with
buses, trams, coaches or driving in cars.
Although he became extremely nervous on the occasions when
he tried to overcome his ‘irrational’ (clients word) fear by
visiting his local station in preparation for using the
train, he experienced a full blown panic attack when he
actually managed to force himself to step onto a train once
about 18 months previously. He managed to travel one stop
before he staggered off onto the platform. He reported he
was soaking wet, unable to speak and very cold, despite it
being a hot day. As a result he developed a cold which
lasted a week and had to take time off work to recover. He
was very shaken and he reported that this incident was very
frightening. He’d tried will power and ended up ill, so
what other options were available? Since he had forced
himself onto the train he reports that he now gets nervous
passing a rail station and he avoids railway crossings as
much as possible when driving. This situation causes real
inconvenience for John and he is keen to get over it.
He decided to try hypnosis because he had read a press
report about a lady who overcame a far of spiders after a
single session with a hypnotherapist.
John was otherwise fit and healthy and had attended a recent
medical check up under his private medical plan. This fear
of trains had developed suddenly about 3 years earlier,
previous to which John reported that he’d never experienced
any problems.
One day he simply became nervous getting on the train,
remaining tense until the end of the journey. Gradually the
situation worsened until he was unable to board the train at
all.
After history taking we found no causal affect (i.e. he had
not witnessed any train related incidents and nor had he
been involved in one). However, since his unexplained fear
had developed he finds himself obsessing about why he had
this fear, has read lots of theories but still remains as
confused as ever. His big concern was that his reading had
led him to believe that the way to deal with a phobia was to
go back to and deal with the sensitising event or incident
that started it. In this case there wasn’t such an event,
so how could he be helped?
I drew a parallel for him - lots of people have snake
phobias, this is well known. Even harmless grass snakes can
cause phobics to panic and demonstrate extreme fear
reactions. Many people who have snake phobias come from
countries where there are no snakes outside of zoos, for
example Ireland, my own country of origin. However, show
these people a snake on TV and they’ll run from the room.
It’s not logical, and is not rational. They have never seen
a snake in real life, so a sensitising event is impossible,
yet the phobia is real and exists. We’re dealing with the
human condition: expecting everything to make sense all of
the time is a sure fired recipe for disappointment.
I also explained that recent developments in phobia
treatments, such as the fast phobia cure (rewind technique)
meant that often it was possible to help phobics very
quickly indeed. John was willing to try after being given
an explanation of how we’d used hypnosis to calm the fight
or flight response and incorporate the rewind technique into
the treatments. John was also going to learn to use
self-hypnosis and as the rewind technique had originally
been developed as self-help, he was also going to learn how
to use that technique as well to help him self-manage if
required.
The following explanations were given to John before
proceeding with the initial session. Including history
gathering and discussions with John, total time for this
first consultation was 90 minutes.
Self hypnosis process
We began with diaphragmatic breathing exercises.
A standard body relaxation approach would be used to induce
physical relaxation and reduce muscular tension. Deepening
using mental imagery, i.e. count down from 10 to zero I
asked John to visualise each number as I spoke it, allowing
each number to double his existing state if relaxation.
A personal safe place was established using visualisation,
this being a private place that John could recreate during
his self-hypnosis sessions where he knew he was free to
relax and take things easy. John created his own safe
place; it did not evolve in response to any suggestions
about what I thought his safe place should be. In John’s
case it was a small dark and warm room with a comfortable
bed and red curtains with a low ceiling.
John was asked to select 3 brief statements which he would
use as self-suggestion during his self-hypnosis sessions.
He wanted an example so I introduced him to Coues
affirmation:
“Everyday, in everyway, I am getting better and better”
John liked this and decided to use it, in addition be also
selected:
“I am cool, calm and collected”
“I think clearly and logically at all times”
He agreed that he would write these affirmations and leave
them where he could see them during the day and that he
would repeat them regularly.
After completing the relaxation training John was brought
out of hypnosis and the second stage of the process, the
rewind technique, began.
The Rewind Technique
The Rewind Technique is also known as the Fast Phobia Cure
or V/K Dissociation technique (V = Visual, K = Kinesthetic)
It was initially developed by Dr David Muss who published
what was probably the first self-help book in the UK for
PTSD sufferers: Book Title - The Trauma Trap. It is now out
of print in the UK but copies may occasionally still be
found on Amazon.
The Rewind technique is deceptively simple to use, yet it is
highly effective. Dr Muss himself claims an 80% success
rate using his technique; however this figure is likely to
differ from therapist to therapist and to be influenced by
client group. As well as PTSD the technique is also used to
help with panic attacks and phobias.
The aim of the technique when used with PTSD is to help
sufferers put the traumatic incident behind them by stopping
unwanted thoughts and images intruding during their day to
day lives. It is known as the Rewind Technique due to the
use of the clients memory of the event to ‘experience’
rewinding occurrences of the incident(s) in their own mind’s
eye. It was later discovered that this technique, when used
in the treatment of phobias, produced good results and was
often able to help people overcome phobias in a single
session.
The technique can be practiced 'content free' which means
that the therapist can use the technique without having to
know details of the incident, although this is not ideal.
However, this approach can be considered for clients who may
otherwise have difficulties discussing their experiences.
It is also an advantage as the client does not experience
unnecessary re-telling of their story, and the upset that
this can cause.
It is believed that the process works as the traumatic
memory is 're-processed' and re-encoded in the brain. This
re-encoding stops the automatic triggering of the fight or
flight response whenever the memory is accessed and it is
this process which stops the unwanted symptoms of PTSD from
occurring.
The process used may be slightly different from therapists
to therapist; however the following basics should be
employed:
The therapists should first of all relax you and make sure
that you are comfortable and at ease. Relaxation can be
achieved in many ways, the use of a hypnotic induction is
ideal here. There should be no need to discuss the incident
in any great detail and as suggested earlier, the entire
session may be conducted content free, without having to
discuss the incident at all. The therapist should be able
to provide you with clear and concise instructions on what
they want you to do during the session. The Rewind Technique
is carried out in a very structured way, don't be concerned
about this - it is the therapist’s job to ensure that they
explain exactly what will happen and to ensure that you are
comfortable with the process. It may be useful to practice
the Rewind Technique several times during the same session.
The therapist should not, however, attempt to deal with
more than one incident per session using the technique. The
Rewind Technique is a masterful desensitisation technique
and its power lies in its simplicity and ease of
application.
In this case we decided to use the rewind on John’s
experience when he had boarded the train and experienced a
panic attack. The process was as follows and includes
instructions to John:
The rewind: Most of us have had the experience of being in
complete and total control over ordinary everyday items such
as the image displayed on our television screens by means of
a video recorder. At the touch of a button, without leaving
our chair, we decide whether or not a certain image is going
to be allowed to play. We further decide when it is going
to be played, for how long, how bright it will be, you
decide how fast to play it, you can slow it down, turn the
sound up or down, or even switch it off completely … you
have total control. Now using the power of your imagination
see yourself sitting in a room watching a video film on a
television screen. You have control over the remote
control; it is in your hand. You are watching a film of the
event that you were involved in from a point in time 15
minutes before it began. In a moment, when I say begin,
press the start button on the remote control and the film
will begin at a point just before the incident began. The
film will play through in great detail, showing every sight,
playing every sound as you watch yourself on the screen
until the incident finishes and memory fades. When you
reach this point simply nod your head and say GONE. So
ready now:
- BEGIN
Wait until the client nods his head and says GONE.
Now in a moment you will hear me say REWIND and when you
hear this a wonderful thing will happen. The film on the
video will begin to rewind and play backwards. You will see
yourself in the film, and you will see everything that
happened, backwards. You will see hear and experience
everything differently, backwards. When you rewind to a
point before the incident, when you felt good about yourself
then simply nod your head again … and relax completely.
So ready now … REWIND
We used this method to play through the incident 4 times
during this session. On each play the speed that John
completed each cycle decreased. He reported that his
feelings about the scenes lessened with each play so that by
the end of the 4th cycle he didn’t feel the need
to do anything more.
We finished the session by walking down to the local station
and I boarded a train with John and went one stop. John was
smiling throughout the journey and reported not feeling in
the slightest bit nervous. I asked him to phone me a week
later which he did. John reported that he was practising
his self-hypnosis (but not the rewind) and found himself
quite relaxed as a result. He had invested in a few
self-hypnosis tapes. He had been on several train trips
since and had been a bit nervous on two of them but he found
the deep breathing exercises we’d practised enabled him to
manage this. We arranged a second session as a ‘booster’
when we had a week later, two weeks after the initial
session. John was feeling extremely confident by then and
we concentrated on helping him learn to deepen his state of
relaxation while his eyes were open so he could use his
techniques while commuting. All in all an excellent result.
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link:
http://www.hypnotherapyarticles.com/Cases/case00005.htm
Be
confident, more relaxed and in control. Be successful in
love, work and so much more! 
