[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak||no_popup[/img]Just recently I called an old friend, who, unbeknown to me, had just been released from a five-day hospital stay. She had awakened at 5 a.m. to find her entire right side tingling as if she had pins and needles. Fearing she may have suffered a stroke, her husband drove her to the hospital where she was almost immediately admitted for.
After a battery of tests, including x-rays, MRI and a spinal tap,. a brain lesion was discovered.
While at the hospital, she had a major seizure. Doctors are not sure what her outcome will be, but she must return in four weeks for another MRI.
An unfortunate side effect of the seizure is that the doctors are mandated to report this to the DMV. Her driving license has been suspended for three months. Meanwhile, the medical profession can finally diagnose and treat her condition, and hopefully ensure that she has no further seizures, which they believe they can do through medication.
She suffers from panic and anxiety compounded by claustrophobia. Had it not been for the fact that she was heavily dosed with tranquilizers, she would have gone crazy inside the MRI machine. She asked me if hypnotherapy would help her when she returns for her next MRI, and I assured her it would.
Testing Her Nervousness
In hypnosis, I had her experience her nervousness inside the MRI, but while viewing it from a detached perspective sitting in a safe location and observing on an imaginary movie screen. I had her do this several times, indicating the severity of each attack by raising her index finger. The height of the raised finger indicated the strength of the attack.
I then did the same thing, but this time actually seeing herself inside the MRI, and again had her raise her finger to indicate the severity of the attack.
Later, I set about a process of desensitization, to the point that when I asked her to experience an attack, she was unable to create one. We repeated this several times.
When she came out of her hypnotic trance, she felt relaxed, happier at the prospect of the MRI. The hypnosis had given her much more control over her reactions.
Defeating Fear
This statement was key for her as well as any person who suffers from panic and anxiety. Our subconscious does not understand why we experience these attacks. It tries to attach a rational reason to an irrational feeling. The fact of the matter is with this fear of MRI as well as other fears, that at some point the person has had a severe sugar level drop, causing shortness of breath, fearful feelings, sweating, increased heart rate and a belief death is near. Because the subconscious has not experienced this before, it has to attach a cause to it. The cause usually is whatever we are doing at the time.
I have said before that it is important to maintain stable sugar levels to ensure that the brain is well nourished because this allows the brain to not function from the primitive areas but from the higher functioning critical levels. When functioning from a higher level, the brain is not subject to the kinds of anxieties caused by inadequate nutrition. In my friend’s case, the stress of the hospitalization as well as the MRI itself compounded her problem.
After the desensitization, I gave her a trigger word she will say to herself as the MRI begins. This word will trigger the relaxation she has been conditioned to while in hypnosis, creating the same relaxed feelings she had when under hypnosis, allowing her to have an uneventful and relaxed MRI experience.
A clinical hypnotherapist, handwriting analyst and expert master hypnotist, Nicholas Pollak may be contacted at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net
