Protective Posturing

(This blog was originally posted on December 8, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

A few years ago, as I was switching channels on the television, I happened to catch a couple minutes of a rodeo competition on RFDTV. As I recall, a rider was climbing onto a very large bull, waiting for the chute to open and begin his round. The television announcer started providing a bit of background about the man, including a very interesting detail. Apparently, the rider had recently recovered from a broken scapula (collar bone). However, his posture on the animal indicated that he was subconsciously “protecting” the previously injured area, which could undermine his success during the round, the announcer warned. A doctor had cleared the rider to compete, so the man was obviously healthy, fit and strong enough to ride a bucking bull again. However, the rider’s subconscious mind didn’t completely believe this prognosis, which could undermine his self-confidence and actual ability to ride well and stay safe.

Most of us can probably identify with this phenomenon. Whether we are coming back from a long illness or get hurt participating in a sport or performing a task at work, it’s natural to favor other areas of the body to protect the injured area. Sometimes this means that we assume very strange postures or physical contortions, which ultimately puts undue extra strain on the healthy/intact body part.

We also do this metaphorically to protect ourselves from emotional pain or discomfort, such as following the end of a relationship or loss through bereavement or geographic relocation. We build metaphoric walls around our feelings (hearts), and use sarcasm and even cruel comments to discourage anyone from trying to break through and establish a bond. Have you ever sworn to “never fall in love again” when your true love breaks your heart, or to never buy or adopt another pet after a beloved companion animal has died? These behaviors serve the same purpose: to protect that vulnerable or injured part of ourselves from future pain by blocking off or using defensive behaviors to guard that area from further injury.

In fact, the desire to avoid emotional pain is so ingrained that the subconscious mind has specific strategies to protect us from these risks. According to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., an Emotional Sexual individual uses rationality and intellect to distance (separate) him- or herself from a potentially contentious (romantic) situation to protect these vulnerable emotions. The Emotional Sexual person always wants to maintain control, and the best way to do this is to literally “turn off” the feelings or, at very least, to segregate sexual desire from emotional entanglement.

While a Physical Sexual individual uses his or her body (sex) to protect the person from emotional vulnerability, sex and love are often indistinguishable in this person’s mind. If and when this person feels threatened emotionally—in other words, fears rejection by the partner—he or she tends to become very clingy and needy, trying to keep the lover close by and thus “under control.” Of course, these behaviors only push the other person further away and open fresh emotional wounds.

When it comes to recovering from a broken bone or a broken heart, many times the best course for complete recovery is to step back for a little (or long) while and let that real or metaphoric fracture to heal. Loosen the reins or hold you have on that volatile situation; let it run its course without so much intervention but enough confidence in your ability to either stay the course or safely separate from it to ride or love again another day.

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Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2018

Going for a Cause

(This blog was originally posted on May 4, 2014)

Photo by Rick Hustead

At some time in our lives, just about everyone uses a defense mechanism to cope with a stressful or disappointing experience. These strategies can include denial or displacement of the unpleasant emotion, repression of a memory, substance abuse, regressing to an earlier stage of development or even substance dependency. However these behaviors provide only a temporary perception of control over the environment; eventually, we have to deal with and resolve the primary issue that has triggered the defense mechanism in order to achieve personal growth. To be an effective hypnotherapist, I must recognize which one(s) a client may be using, how and why the device is working in this situation, and when it is preventing desired change and personal growth to occur.

According to John Kappas, Ph.D., resistance to changing a behavior is the first stage of effecting this change. “We do things systematically to avoid change,” said the founder of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute. “Change is a threat to the unconscious mind.” To facilitate change in a client’s behavior—such as helping someone to quit smoking or to lose weight—the hypnotherapist must “buy” the person’s symptoms of defensive behavior and provide some symptomatic relief. But for the problem or unwanted behavior to be truly resolved it is often necessary to go for the cause of the conflict or symptom. “The client may be subconsciously protecting [the cause] by employing defense-mechanism devices,” Dr. Kappas explained.

Usually, many factors combine to create the primary issue or problem, and the client is suggestible to those precipitating factors, the hypnotherapist explained. Consequently, the first hypnotherapy session with a client is the most important component of the therapeutic process, because this is the first opportunity to start working with the client’s suggestibility and “suggest” certain changes in behavior. For example, I might work with a client to desensitize the person to the association of smoking a cigarette while drinking an alcoholic beverage before supper. Or, I would create a new association in which a client would “choose” to write about his or her negative emotions in a journal rather than eat a bowl of ice cream when the person felt angry or sad. But these changes in behavior—social drinking and displacing negative emotions through eating—can and will only occur when the client is ready to recognize the relationship between the emotion and behavior.

“You cannot cure a person by telling him what the problem is,” Dr. Kappas said. “Whenever you hit the cause of the problem, symptoms start to disappear. Once you identify and remove the primary cause of the problem, you must alleviate secondary issues.”

 

           

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2018

Passive Aggressive Behavior

(This blog was originally posted on March 31, 2014)

Photo by Sara Fogan

                You must repeatedly remind your teenage son to end a phone conversation with his friend so he can pick up his younger sibling from band practice before he finally snaps the phone shut and stomps out of the room. When you ask your spouse to make a stop on the way home from work to pick up the food you ordered for supper, the response is a loud sigh and a sarcastic comment: “Sure, it’s not as if I don’t have enough to do during the day.” Maybe you consistently forget to return a novel you borrowed from your friend, even though you see each other just about every day at school or work. Sound familiar?

These behaviors are examples of passive aggression, a common form of defensive behavior. It is not exclusive to males or females, and it can be manifested at any age starting from very early childhood until the end of the person’s life. It can start at age 18 months to between two and five years old, when a child starts to differentiate from the parent or caretaker in a subconscious bid to become more independent and autonomous. The more the adult tries to exert authority over the youngster, the more resistant the child becomes: You say yes, the child says no. If the parent does not provide options or alternatives for the desired behavior, but simply demands the child to do what he or she has been told, the youngster doesn’t have a chance to experience the desired autonomy. The child may then exert his or her independence by forgetting to do something or make jokes or sarcastic comments in front of other people as a way to express frustration about the situation. Over time, this tactic becomes a “known” in the subconscious and, eventually, the preferred problem-solving strategy and technique.

With the exception of reactions to fear of falling and fear of loud noises, passive aggression—like all other behaviors—is learned; therefore, it can be unlearned. When I work with a client to overcome this “resistant lifestyle,” I will first explore the different emotional triggers for the client’s behavior, such as tone of voice/words used of the person making a request, the time of day the client is most likely to respond this way, etc. Then, while the person is in hypnosis, I will systematically desensitize him or her to these triggers and teach a relaxation response that can be substituted for the previous “known” behavior (passive aggression).  Finally, I may incorporate some hypnodrama and therapeutic guided imagery or visualization techniques to give the person a chance to rehearse expressing his or her needs in these specific situations. Over time, by practicing the relaxation response and communicating what he or she needs at that time, the person can establish these behaviors as a new known response in other similar situations.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014

Passive Aggressive Behavior

Photo by Sara Fogan

Passive aggression is like a glacier: it's strong, solid and
makes its opinion obvious without seeming to do much of anything.

                You must repeatedly remind your teenage son to end a phone conversation with his friend so he can pick up his younger sibling from band practice before he finally snaps the phone shut and stomps out of the room. When you ask your spouse to make a stop on the way home from work to pick up the food you ordered for supper, the response is a loud sigh and a sarcastic comment: “Sure, it’s not as if I don’t have enough to do during the day.” Maybe you consistently forget to return a novel you borrowed from your friend, even though you see each other just about every day at school or work. Sound familiar?

These behaviors are examples of passive aggression, a common form of defensive behavior. It is not exclusive to males or females, and it can be manifested at any age starting from very early childhood until the end of the person’s life. It can start at age 18 months to between two and five years old, when a child starts to differentiate from the parent or caretaker in a subconscious bid to become more independent and autonomous. The more the adult tries to exert authority over the youngster, the more resistant the child becomes: You say yes, the child says no. If the parent does not provide options or alternatives for the desired behavior, but simply demands the child to do what he or she has been told, the youngster doesn’t have a chance to experience the desired autonomy. The child may then exert his or her independence by forgetting to do something or make jokes or sarcastic comments in front of other people as a way to express frustration about the situation. Over time, this tactic becomes a “known” in the subconscious mind and, eventually, the preferred problem-solving strategy and technique.

With the exception of reactions to fear of falling and fear of loud noises, passive aggression—like all other behaviors—is learned; therefore, it can be unlearned. When I work with a client to overcome this “resistant lifestyle,” I will first explore the different emotional triggers for the client’s behavior, such as tone of voice/words used of the person making a request, the time of day the client is most likely to respond this way, etc. Then, while the person is in hypnosis, I will systematically desensitize him or her to these triggers and teach a relaxation response that can be substituted for the previous “known” behavior (passive aggression).  Finally, I may incorporate some hypnodrama and therapeutic guided imagery or visualization techniques to give the person a chance to rehearse expressing his or her needs in these specific situations. Over time, by practicing the relaxation response and communicating what he or she needs at that time, the person can establish these behaviors as a new known response in other similar situations.

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014