Psychology 1

Assignment No.: 1

Dela Cruz, Mylan, G.

Tuesday-Thursday

9:00am-10:30am

January 06, 2011

Prof. Julious Caesar C. Ilican

1. Case study about hypnosis

Case of a stay-at-home mom

A 32-year-old married stay-at-home mother with two young children, came to me complaining of
constantly feeling anxious and stressed out, increased irritability, having difficulty coping with the
demands of child rearing, all of which were affecting her marriage. She expressed great hopes for
hypnosis to help improve her emotional state and develop a positive attitude about life. After we explored
her issues in more depth, I explained to my client proven benefits and common misconceptions about
hypnosis. I emphasized that contrary to common fears, in hypnosis one is in control and capable of
making decisions at all times. One will not follow a suggestion that goes against one's moral standards.
Moreover, one cannot be hypnotized against one's will, and most people can be hypnotized as long as
they want to be. Considering that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, a client's motivation and desire to be
helped are critical to the success of the treatment process. A therapist's role is to guide one through this
comfortable, inspiring and empowering experience.

Following our discussion, I conducted a few tests to determine my client's level of suggestibility to my
instructions. She was pleasantly surprised to find out that she demonstrated high level of suggestibility.
However, this is not unusual because of established trust between us and her strong motivation to improve
her condition. I then asked the client to find a comfortable position in a recliner and began the process of
induction, which fosters both physical and mental relaxation and at the same time elicits a heightened
state of awareness.

Once I established that the client had reached a hypnotic state, I began Parts Therapy, which in my
opinion, is one of the most effective hypnotherapy techniques designed to deal with unwanted behaviors,
thought patterns, and emotional problems. Parts Therapy is based on the idea that we are all made up of
many sub-personalities or "parts." For example, there is a happy fun loving part, a sad part, a thoughtful
part, a shy part, and many other parts. Frequently the cause of the problem or symptom presented by the
client lies in the earlier trauma experienced by that individual. And because the subconscious mind is
protective, it sets up parts to deal with the trauma or special needs the individual may require. By
discovering and contacting the part that is causing the unwanted behavior and regressing to the original
traumatic event, the root of the problem is uncovered and neutralized. It is worth mentioning that there are
no "bad" parts despite the role that they play, because the intention of each part is to protect the
individual.

In case of my client, I addressed the part of her subconscious which was causing her to feel anxious and
stressed out. During the regression, she recalled a number of events that were related to her current
symptoms. But the earliest one, which would be considered the event that had caused her problem, was
when she was about 4 years old, left alone in the house, feeling scared and lonely. Following the
regression, I conducted the "inner child work" to facilitate forgiveness and emotional clearing.
Finally, the part that was causing my client to feel anxious and stressed out was retrained to perform new
positive behaviors and undertake new positive roles. These included making this part of the client's
subconscious responsible for the client:

• To feel calm and relaxed

• to instantly achieve the state of calm and relaxation when taking 2 deep breaths
• to deal with problems in a positive and constructive way
• to feel happy and optimistic about life

Once we completed Parts Therapy, I taught my client self-hypnosis, which with practice would allow her
to achieve a relaxed state on her own in the comfort of her own home. At this point, I brought the client
out of hypnosis, and we discussed her impressions about the process. She was surprised that she was
hypnotized because she heard and was aware of everything going on with her while being comfortable
and relaxed. This is a common reaction because people often expect to be asleep. Moreover, my client
shared that she did not remember being left alone as a child prior to this session. This is because
frequently traumatic events are not recallable by the conscious mind. I gave my client a recording of this
session and instructed her to listen to it at least once a day. Listening to the recordings is strongly
recommended for reinforcement purposes. Parts Therapy is done only during the initial session. For each
additional problem it needs to be repeated. The following sessions are intended to reinforce recently
learned information and might include various hypnotherapy styles, such as Suggestive, Neuro-Linguistic
Programming (NLP) and/or Erickson and Hypnotherapy. When we met a week later my client reported
noticeable improvement in her condition, and three sessions later all her symptoms were completely gone.

I hope that the above described case has illustrated how effective hypnotherapy can be given the proper
use of hypnotherapy methods and the client's cooperation and motivation for change. If you find that you
are struggling with similar problems or maybe even something entirely different, don't hesitate and give
hypnosis a chance to help you achieve a better and more satisfying life.

2. What is your reaction about the case?

My reaction about the case study of hypnosis is there are large individual differences in response
to hypnosis. Hypnosis has little to do with the hypnotist's technique, and very much to do with the
individual's capacity, or talent, for experiencing hypnosis. Most people are at least moderately
hypnotizable. And studies of different age groups show a developmental curve, with very young children
relatively unresponsive to hypnosis. Hypnotizability reaches a peak at about the onset of adolescence but
then scores generally drop off among middle-aged and elderly individuals.