[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak|remove link|no_popup[/img]A new client asked if I could reduce her anxiety and help her feel more worthwhile. She felt she did not count for anything.

An attractive 29-year-old mother of two daughters and a 4-year-old son, the children live with her but their father, her boyfriend, does not although he is in their lives on a daily basis. He ensures that his family has enough funds for a comfortable life. He manages apartment buildings, owns property and loves to gamble.

Amazingly enough, she describes her boyfriend as a “savant” with numbers. This accounts for his frequent trips to Las Vegas, where he has won large amounts of money. Once he won $100,000 playing blackjack. He was extremely tight with the money from his business but was quite generous with his gambling winnings, she said, because he considered that play money.

She had been raised in a broken home. Her father, kind and gentle but alcoholic, left the family when she was 8 years old and remarried a woman who had two children from a previous marriage. He brought his children into his new marriage since his ex-wife hardly ever was home and had left the children to fend for themselves.

At the tender age of 8, my client was forced to take on the responsibilities of looking after the home and her seven brothers and sisters.

Not only did she attend school, she cooked, cleaned and generally maintained the house for her father, who became disabled and her stepmother who constantly was out working. Her stepmother was very critical of her and left her feeling unloved, unappreciated, unwanted.

Triple Duty

She actually left home and began to fend for herself at 12. By persuading her school to allow her to pursue, independent study, she worked two jobs to maintain an income.

I think we can agree this client has had a hectic, unusual life and is mature way beyond her 29 years. One additional thing she wanted to deal with was arguing. She does not like those kinds of confrontations and will not have them. She will walk away or hang up a phone to avert a disagreement. This started in early childhood. Her parents’ arguments were so distracting she was relieved when they divorced.

I was not sure how I could help this woman. She was not clear about what she wanted. We settled on eliminating occasional panic and her doormat feeling. She wanted to say what she wanted to say without feeling less than or put down. As in “The King’s Speech,” she began to learn she had a voice, worthwhile contributions, and she would stand her ground when she held an opinion that differed. She learned to defend her position without feeling guilty.

Six Is Enough

In most cases, six sessions are sufficient for my clients to implement the changes they want to improve their lives. My sessions follow a clear pattern. Session 1 is a discussion of suggestibility or how we communicate. The second centers on behaviors, where the clients begin to learn the differences in various behaviors and they relate to them. In the third session, I teach the “Theory of the Mind,” how the subconscious and conscious work together.

After each discussion I perform hypnosis to help the client gain the desired changes. Sessions 4,5 and 6 refine the suggestions and teach the clients how to do for themselves what they had been asking me to do for them.

This is a successful method. In the present case, after the young woman understood suggestibility, her life started changing. She learned to listen to the way someone was speaking to her, whether inferentially or literally. She learned that however she was spoken to, she would respond in the opposite way. If someone takes in information 100 percent literally, you will find that they speak out 100 percent inferentially.

After her second session discussing her behaviors, she started to see how her behaviors worked, how she had been attracting the kinds of people she did not want in her life.

The third session also was an eye opener. She could see how her subconscious had stored everything she ever had seen heard, smelled or done. She saw how her childhood had affected the way she how she was reliving her childhood. As a mother of three, she was still doing as she had in her early childhood, looking after small children.

These three sessions helped her so much she started evolving into the person she always wanted to be. She is excited for her final three sessions because she is stronger, more capable than ever before.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321, or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net