The Couple Who Became Each Other: And Other Tales of Healing from a Hypnotherapist's Casebook - Rilegato

Calof, David L.; Simons, Robin

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0553096680 ISBN 13: 9780553096682

Casa editrice: Bantam Dell Pub Group, 1996

Riassunto

A family therapist and hypnotherapist draws on a wide range of case histories to explore the extraordinary powers of the human mind and illuminate the therapeutic process used to assess and treat problems.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"Gripping tales...[Calof] emerges as a healer of unusual perspicacity and insight."
--Publishers Weekly

"David Calof weaves spellbinding tales of hope and resurrection.  Enter a world of imaginative treatment and gain new insight into the healing powers that reside within."
--Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D., director, the Milton H. Erickson Foundation

"David Calof is one of the most creative hypnotists I have met."
--John Grinder, co-developer of NLP

"Fascinating reading for anyone interested in the process of therapy, hypnosis, and the mind-body connection."
--Barry M. Cohen, founder and chairman, Eastern Regional Conference on Abuse, Trauma and Dissociation

"David Calof weaves spellbinding tales of hope and resurrection.  Enter a world of imaginative treatment and gain new insight into the healing powers that reside within."
--Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D., director, the Milton H. Erickson Foundation

"Filled with courageous journeys from debilitating physical and psychic pain to liberating health...If you are a therapist, you'll read this book and want to give it to your clients.  If you are in therapy, you'll read this book and want to give it to your therapist."
--Evan Imber-Black, Ph.D., past-president, American Family Therapy Academy; professor of psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
From the Trade Paperback edition.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

I had worked with Douglas for over a year.  At fourteen, he was bright and likable, with a quick wit, a charming smile, and a penchant for pushing the limits just a little farther than they wanted to bend.  His father had died when Douglas was six, and ever since, his mother had found him "hard to manage."  With his engaging gestures and artful rhetoric, he often talked his way around her.  And that's what made his case so perplexing.  Despite his obvious intelligence and verbal acuity, Douglas couldn't read.

His mother had brought him to me after numerous specialists and programs had failed to bring his reading above a second-grade level, and our work together had included nearly every approach I could think of.  We'd gone hypnotically back to childhood to redecide early decisions about reading; we'd worked hypnotically to strengthen his study skills and habits; we'd gone hypnotically into the "future" to help him build a strong self-image as a reader; we'd worked hypnotically to help him relax, smooth his eye movements across the page, and curtail his subvocalizations.  He had been a tremendous hypnotic subject, skilled at every deep trance phenomenon I'd taught him.  And to both my gratification and vexation, everything had worked--for a little while.  Shortly after each session his reading level would rise--then gradually decline again to about the second grade.  Douglas had been as frustrated as his mother and I, and finally, feeling he'd done everything he could, he had decided to quit.

Now suddenly he was back.  It had been six months since I'd seen him, and of his own volition he'd decided to try again.  Surely I had something else to offer!  But I was stumped.  And more than that, I was shaken.  My hypnotherapy practice was founded on the conviction that we all carry our own solutions inside, that our unconscious mind is our creative resource for problem solving if only we can get out of our way to hear it.  But now my belief in that inner wisdom was flickering.  Douglas was one of my most accomplished subjects, and still he retained his problem.  What did that say about the unconscious?  Was it less of a creative resource than I'd imagined?  Faced with the evidence, I found myself questioning the most basic assumption of my work.

But no, I argued, this tremendous wisdom must reside within--Douglas and I just haven't tapped it fully.  Somehow we're stuck in a set, a way of perceiving the problem, that's too narrow.  If we can get out of our mindset, see the problem differently, we'll be more able to see the solution.  Suddenly I had a brainstorm.  What if I created a situation in which we literally could see the situation differently?  What if I had us switch roles?  If I played Douglas--if I worked hard and narrowed my concentration so that I really felt like Douglas--perhaps I could tap unconscious knowledge about him that my conscious mindset was obscuring.  And if Douglas hypnotically played me, if he believed himself to be a "professional"--capable, wise, successful, all the things he felt he wasn't--then perhaps from that position of self-confidence he could tap inner knowledge that his conscious mindset was obscuring.

I felt a flush of excitement: this might work!  At the very least, it couldn't be less effective than what we'd already tried.  So after Douglas had sauntered into the office and we'd had our opening banter, I helped him into a deep trance, telling him we'd be trying something very different.  Then I gave him the suggestions.  When next he opened his eyes, I told him, I would be Douglas, and he would be me.  We would each have the other's knowledge, and he would tell me what I needed to do.

Douglas sat quietly, preparing the assignment.  Then, after several minutes, I asked him to open his eyes.  He stared at me blankly.

"Hi," I greeted him.

He didn't answer.

I waited for a moment, watching for a response.  But he just eyed me patiently as if waiting for a cue.  I began to worry that the suggestions hadn't taken.  "How are you feeling?"  I tried.

For several seconds he continued to watch me, his eyes and posture giving no indication of what was happening inside.  Then slowly he leaned forward in his chair, rested one elbow on his knee, and began stroking an imaginary beard.  "How are you feeling?"  he returned.  His voice had the perfect therapeutic inflection.

I resisted the urge to grin.

Instead I launched into a litany of complaints, enumerating every intervention we'd tried and its disappointing result.  Finally I said, "Look!  I've been coming here for a long time and I still can't read!  We've tried all these things and nothing's really worked.  You gotta help me!"

Douglas eyed me calmly, then coolly waved his arm.  "Now, wait a minute.  Wait a minute.  Give me some time to think."  Then, in a gesture that I immediately recognized as mine, he cradled his chin in his hand.  A moment later, he leaned forward in his chair.  "Isn't it true..."  he began.  His voice was several notes deeper than normal.  "Isn't it true that you've been in a bunch of special programs for this problem?"

"Yes," I said.

"And isn't it true that you've gone to a lot of different schools for this?"

"Uh-huh."

"And isn't it true that you've had a lot of special treatment?"

"Yeah."

"And isn't it true that ever since your dad died your mother hasn't really pushed you?  If you don't want to practice reading any more you don't even have to!  She even lets you stay out late and doesn't even make you do your homework if you don't want to.  Isn't that true?  You know what I think?  I think you're vested in this behavior!"

Vested?  From an "illiterate" fourteen-year-old?  Clearly we'd tapped some unconscious knowledge.  And what was this about his relationship with his mother?  Was it true that she'd stopped pushing him to read, that she was letting him stay out late instead of making him study?  I'd never considered his mother in our therapy; I'd assumed the problem resided in Doug.  But he was suggesting a whole new paradigm, an interpersonal dimension to the problem!  I decided to follow the clue.  "Would it be okay if I brought my mom in here so you can tell her what you told me?"

"Of course!"  He waved his arm again.  "By all means, bring her in."

So I went to retrieve Douglas's mother from the waiting room.  In my tiny quarters there was no way I could do it without Douglas seeing and hearing, so I had to stay in role.  "Mom," I said awkwardly, "could you come talk to David?"

His mother looked at me quizzically.  Reflexively, her gaze shot down to her wallet, which was lying on the floor, and I saw the thought pass through her mind: I'm paying this guy and he's crazy!

"Please," I pleaded, hoping the look in my eye would assuage her doubt.  I knew she liked and trusted me; I hoped she'd realize we were up to something wacky but potentially beneficial.

To my relief, without asking any questions she stood up and followed me into the office.  There, she sat down and looked at me expectantly.  But still I had to stay in role, so I just smiled and turned toward Douglas.

"Douglas?" she asked, seeing she would get no help from me.

"Madam, if you want to talk to your son, talk to your son, " said Douglas, and pointed stiffly at me.

"Madam" was not a word Douglas would hear from me.  It was his child's attempt to play the role of the grown-up.  But I couldn't explain that to his mother.  So I merely looked at her and shrugged.

With a sigh of curious good humor she shook her head, then settled back in her chair.

"Would you tell my mother what you just told me?"  I asked.

"Of course," replied Douglas.  Then he began a polite but pointed tirade, lambasting his mother for her "permissive" behavior.  He ended by saying, "Madam, you think you're helping him but you aren't helping him at all, and you should stop treating him as if he were fragile, which is what you've been doing ever since his father died."  Then he folded his arms across his chest and sat back professorially in his chair.

So that was the problem!  Douglas was demanding limits!  He was telling his mother he needed her to treat him like a child rather than let him grow up too soon.  Now I saw the reason for not reading: it was a way of hanging on to childhood, on to a time, perhaps, when his father was still alive, on to a time that felt safer than the limitless years since his father's death.

Stepping back into my own role, I glanced over at his mother.  She seemed stunned by his accusations, but also relieved, as if in them she recognized the truth.  "Do you have anything you'd like to say?"  I asked.

Speechless, she shook her head.

So I reoriented Douglas to his identity, while keeping him in a trance.  &quo...

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Bantam Dell Pub Group
• Data di pubblicazione: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0553096680
• ISBN 13: 9780553096682
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 354