Body Syndromes: The Responsibility Syndrome

(This blog was originally posted on December 14, 2015)

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

     Have you ever been plagued by severe pain or discomfort in your back or shoulders while you are working on tight deadline to complete a project at work, or dealing with some family or relationship issues? Do you notice this discomfort is most prominent when you are under intense emotional stress, but it almost instantly—miraculously—goes away when the issue is also resolved? If so, your symptoms may be part of the Responsibility Syndrome.

    This syndrome affects the shoulders and upper back and upper spine. Physiological symptoms and diseases that are characterized by these syndromes include: muscle tightness or muscle spasm in the back, upper spinal subluxation and spinal scoliosis. Like other body syndromes, the symptoms that affect this syndrome are physical manifestations of your perception that you are bearing a lot of responsibility for what is going on in your environment. It is common for people who suffer these symptoms to express the belief that they are “carrying the world on their shoulders.”
     As I explained in a previous blog titled Body Syndromes, 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. Since there are no nerve endings in the brain, the sensory perceptions (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, Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., stated.
    It is out of my scope of expertise as a certified hypnotherapist to recognize/identify specific symptoms that have a psychological or physiological basis. Consequently, I refer clients to an appropriate licensed professional to make this diagnosis. 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 Responsibility Syndrome is to explore what emotional “burden” the client is subconsciously carrying or bearing. Next, I would use systematic desensitization to help the client neutralize the intensity of the stimulus that triggers the physical symptom. With a physician’s referral, I would also incorporate guided therapeutic imagery to teach the person effective pain-management techniques that will help him or her deal with the physical discomfort and continue or return to normal activities. The Emotional Freedom Technique is also useful to increase the person’s perception of being able to control and prevail over those emotional triggers. Therapeutic guided-imagery techniques would also be useful tools with which to explore different options for the client to quickly and effectively resolve interpersonal and/or practical conflicts the client believes are preventing his or her ability to enjoy life. In so doing, these therapeutic approaches can help the person release and let go of overwhelming perceptions of responsibility to 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/.

© 2015

Dressing the Part

(This blog was originally posted on December 28, 2014)

                Whenever I have to get something done, I dress the part. When I was working as a magazine editor, I wore a suit to work just about every day. I don’t know why I started doing that. Perhaps it was because, having just returned from England after living abroad for seven years, I was used to seeing professional people looking like they had somewhere important to go. Monday through Friday, on the London Underground, at bus stations and walking around the city, everyone looked so chic. (Of course, people dressed the part in Los Angeles, too; but since most people drove cars out here it was hard to know how they really looked from outside the vehicle.) But I also discovered that it was easier for me to get and maintain that mind-set for my work throughout the day.

My days as a magazine editor are long over, but I continue to dress for whatever part or role I am playing on a given day. If am going to give a presentation about hypnotherapy or work with my hypnotherapy clients, I wear business attire. If I am going out to the barn to ride my horse or just hang out with him and do chores around the barn, I put on my “horse clothes”: i.e., britches, shirt or sweater, half-chaps, Mountain Horse Jod boots. Right before I get on Galahad, I am also wearing gloves and my Troxel riding helmet. If I am competing in a horse show, I wear specific riding gear for that: white britches, white blouse and stock tie, black dressage coat and my tall dressage boots—plus white leather gloves, hair-net and stock pin. If I am going out for the evening, I wear appropriate attire for whatever the activity or event I am attending.

Finally, dressing the part helps to increase my self-confidence in my ability to do whatever task is at hand. When I was dressed like an editor—or what I thought an editor should wear—I also looked and acted like an editor. As a hypnotherapist, it is important to me that I can convey a sense of confidence, experience, calm and support to my clients. Sometimes, I also wear a name badge to reinforce this image when I work with someone for the first time. When I’m at the barn, I feel more confident and secure about my activities knowing that I am wearing protective gear that is specifically designed to prevent serious injury if I fall off a horse or get kicked or stepped on.

Guess what? I even put on something that tells me (and my subconscious mind) it’s time to relax and unwind from the stresses of the day when I am just planning to hang out at home reading or watching television. I know that my SCM should “know” how to relax as instinctively as it knows how to do most of the activities I mentioned above. However, sometimes I even have to remind myself that it’s okay to just do one thing (or nothing) at a time. In a way, the clothing functions like the critical area of my subconscious mind, as Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., described in his Theory of Mind. This is the area of the mind that rejects any unknown or unfamiliar (painful) information for the SCM. So, to put this model into effect, when I am at work seeing a client, my official attire reminds my mind rejects distracting message units about the time I will spend with Galahad later in the day. And when I am with my horse, my riding garments remind me to focus on him.

Especially the boots: they have a reinforced steel toe to protect my feet in case I start thinking about something other than my boy, who likes to remind me where my attention should be focused should it drift away from him.

                                                                                                                 

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

My New Office

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

Since December 1, 2014, in addition to continuing to provide hypnotherapy to clients at their homes and via Skype consultations, I have been able to work with clients at my new office in Santa Clarita, California. I am very excited about this new space: in addition to being in a convenient location with nearby freeway access for my clients to get to me, the office is ideally set up to best facilitate hypnotherapy, as originally recommended by Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder Dr. John Kappas, Ph.D.

According to Dr. Kappas, while the hypnotherapist conducts the pre-induction and induction to hypnosis, the therapist should sit behind a desk with the client seated in a chair to the therapist’s right or left, facing forward. This seating arrangement enables the client to avoid having direct eye contact with the therapist if he or she chooses. In addition, the presence of the desk serves as a “barrier” between the therapist and the client and prevents the therapist from invading the client’s personal space. (I can and will also pull back or away from the client if the person seems uncomfortable.)

“If the client feels antagonized because you’re too close, the antagonism will carry over to the suggestions and he’ll abreact (respond negatively to or reject) the therapy,” he said.

The hypnotherapist should always be in charge of the therapy, including where the client is seated in the room and how long the session lasts (approximately one hour), Dr. Kappas explained. Finally, he advised, the hypnotherapist should be able to immediately determine whether the client’s presenting issue pertains to avocational or vocational self-improvement (Business and Professions Code 2908) and refer the client to a medical professional for further evaluation.

For more information about hypnotherapy and how it can help you to change an unwanted behavior and achieve your self-improvement goals, please visit my web-site at visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com. If you would like to set up an appointment in my office or at your home, please contact me at (661) 433-9430 or send me an e-mail at calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com.

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