- November 22, 2023
- Posted by: h1b@adn1m
- Category: Hypnotherapy Help
I recently had an email from an eminent psychiatrist who was looking for answers to a number of issues that he had been unable to resolve with conventional therapy. He had been aware of depression creeping up on him for some time.
He enjoyed his job immensely, was extremely successful, financially comfortable, was well liked and respected amongst his peers and patients and had a loving, happy marriage. He took exotic holidays, lived in a beautiful home and enjoyed all the creature comforts in life that he wished to indulge in.
However, there were some areas that impinged on this good life, including an overriding discomfort of being amongst people and doubting himself, despite his obvious success. These issues were causing a reasonable amount of depression and anxiety that stopped him from enjoying his life to the full. He had even moved to a smaller town to be away from lots of people, and refused to socialise.
Having failed to find answers within his own field of expertise to overcome this depression he decided to look outside the box and consider clinical hypnotherapy as a possible means of finding the peace and clarity that he was seeking.
We had a chat on the phone, exchanged a few more emails and agreed that hypnotherapy was a very viable route to take. We set a date and time for him to fly into Brisbane for his treatment.
When my psychiatrist arrived he was very tense and anxious. Apparently he had been like this since boarding his flight the evening before (dreading the possibility of the person sitting next to him striking up a conversation), during his night in a local hotel and in the taxi on his way to my clinic here in Brisbane.
He had never experienced anything like clinical hypnotherapy before, although he had researched it, of course, and was rather sceptical at it having any significant effect on something as severe as depression. Subsequently he initially found it very difficult to move out of his logical way of thinking and even begin to relax just a little. Eventually I made certain observations that indicated he was starting to let go and enjoy a beautiful state of hypnosis. Wonderful!
However, this lovely man found it extremely difficult to relinquish the control of his logical mind to allow access to the area of his mind where we needed to be. Perfectly understandable given the nature of his profession. Eventually I suggested that he simply imagine answers to the questions that I was asking and he found this acceptable, although I knew he was doubting my reasoning behind this. That was until I reminded him that even if he was using his imagination, and it was no more than that, something had put the information into his imagination.
This was the trigger we needed to create free flow. He was able to honour his logical mind with accepting that all his thoughts and words were filtering through his imagination whilst at the same time allowing the possibility that the content of these thoughts and words were initiated from elsewhere.
It took a while for my psychiatrist to settle into this new experience. Once he was able to disregard all reasonable doubt it quickly became apparent where the beliefs surrounding the depression and anxiety were lying and with great understanding and acceptance together we were able to resolve them.
There had been problems of unjust behaviour with colleagues in the past and this had led to my psychiatrist to slowly build a protecting wall between not only himself and future colleagues, but people in general . The way he was treated had caused him to second guess himself. He was the minority – were they right and he wrong?
There was a wonderful sense of emotional release where he was able to experience that ‘ah ha’ moment that led to a powerful breakthrough. This was when everything made sense and he was able to heal and move forward in a more balanced and happy way.
He told me afterwards that once he ‘really got into it’ he didn’t want to come’ out if it’. He also said that as much as he had enjoyed it he felt that his experience of clinical hypnotherapy was not something that he would be sharing with his colleagues at the hospital…….
My psychiatrist emailed me when he got home to tell me that he was feeling much more happy and peaceful, he had had a great conversation with the cabbie all the way to Brisbane airport and enjoyed his return flight.