Hospital phobia of 50 years standing, in person requiring major surgery.
Paul is a retired engineer, and had been suffering extreme pain from a worsening condition, for years. Also for many years, his doctor had recommended surgery, which was met with feelings of terror. Even as a young father, the thought of visiting a hospital generated these feelings of trepidation, to the extent that he had to wait in the car park when his daughter, who was very young at the time, was in hospital.
In our second session, I performed my usual extensive data analysis and discovered that the condition was not purely a phobia, although, one was very much in evidence. There were three other additional component issues operating in a loop with the phobia, serving to reinforce its effect. Conscious exploration of patterns of related behaviour revealed that these were: a fear of the unknown, a fear of letting go of control, and a lack of trust in the competence of others. To discover the origin of these fears, as a potential key to its resolution, I led Paul into quite a deep trance state, and using regression, in one case to as early as two years old, Paul took me through the occasions when these fears had first arisen.
It transpired that these fears had resulted quite naturally in response to the treatment he had experienced as a child, of being repeatedly let down, in many different ways, of being unable to rely on anyone or anything. These four components were addressed individually through a combination of bringing the issues to Paul’s conscious awareness. This also served to validate the component issue identified. Once validated, the component issues were also resolved in his unconscious, through hypnosis: A phobia cure was performed for the phobia of hospital processes and environments, and Paul was found to be very receptive. As for the other fears, Paul had long ago escaped from the environment that gave rise to the fears, and the reasons for them were now no longer appropriate behaviour.
Having now brought this realisation to Paul’s unconscious mind, his unconscious no longer felt it necessary to react automatically with terrible fear. With the use of additional NLP techniques, he was able to approach the prospect of life with new mobility in a very positive way. The hypnosis incorporated the ability to relax, pretty well instantly, at will. This was quite an important element, as he had already had a heart attack and suffered from angina. He had his operation, without fear, and is now equipped with the tools to achieve a state of calm at will.