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| 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 therapeutic guided 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/.
© 2014
