Body Syndromes: Fight and Reaching Syndrome

(This blog was originally posted on October 16, 2015)

Image courtesy of Microsoft

According to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., whenever a person represses or does not express an emotion the displaced energy from that experience is converted into a physical “symptom” of that emotional trauma. The phenomenon is called a body syndrome. There are no nerve endings in the brain; however, sensory perception (e.g., smell, taste, sight, hearing, touch) that begin there send electric impulses that carry this information through the body. These impulses ultimately begin to manifest physical discomfort in areas of the body that are specifically associated with a certain repressed emotion. Once we are aware of which emotion is being manifested, we can treat the syndrome, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder stated.

The Fight/Reaching Syndrome affects the arms and hands. Physiological symptoms and diseases that are characterized by these syndromes include: arthritis, blisters, nail-biting, rheumatism, skin rashes or warts.  According to the premise of Body Syndromes, the symptoms of someone who has a Fight Syndrome manifest the sufferer’s subconscious need to defend her- or himself, such as from verbal or physical abuse. Someone who is metaphorically “reaching” for something that is unobtainable, such as a rejecting lover or a promotion the person was denied, might experience one of those physical ailments as a manifestation of Reaching Syndrome.  

People generally do not know what causes this presenting issue when they seek hypnotherapy. Since it is out of my scope of expertise as a certified hypnotherapist to recognize/identify specific symptoms that have a psychological or physiological basis, I refer clients to an appropriate licensed professional to make this diagnosis. However, once this other expert has ruled out a medical etiology of your symptom and provided an appropriate treatment, I can continue to work with you in hypnotherapy with a follow-up referral from that licensed professional. In addition to providing complementary therapeutic benefits and help to alleviate and/or control your discomfort, I can also use hypnosis and therapeutic guided-imagery techniques to help you achieve vocational and avocational self-improvement goals. 

My first step to treating someone who is manifesting a Fight or Reaching Syndrome is to explore what the client is subconsciously fighting or reaching for. Once the possible cause(s) or motivation(s) has been established, I would use systematic desensitization to help the client neutralize the intensity of the stimulus that triggers his or her physical symptom of this syndrome. I would also incorporate guided therapeutic imagery and teach the emotional freedom technique to increase the person’s perception of being able to control and prevail over the emotional triggers of this syndrome. Therapeutic guided-imagery techniques would also be useful tools with which the client can explore different options for resolving the conflict so he or she could focus on and achieve vocational and avocational self-improvement goals.

               

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/.

© 2015