(This blog was originally posted on February 26,
2014)
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| Photo courtesy of Microsoft |
Everyone lives
in the context of a pain/pleasure principle. We prefer—and try—to do what makes
us feel good (pleasure) and avoid the
things that cause discomfort (pain)
in the context of the “knowns” in the subconscious mind. For example, John Kappas, Ph.D., theorized that the SCM
would categorize your 10-year feud with your siblings as pleasure (known)
because it is so comfortable with all of the emotions it associates with this
grudge.
When anger
morphs into a long-term resentment, it is a habit. Like any other habit or
behavior, it is something you learned. The great news is, since you learned how
to feel angry about a particular situation or at a specific person; therefore,
you can unlearn the anger response in
that context. Following are some basic strategies I would use as a
hypnotherapist to help the individual transform his or her anger response into
one of forgiveness, healing and emotional and spiritual freedom:
- I describe the person's strained relationship with the other person in the context of Dr. Kappas's Theory of Mind to explain/help the client understand how he or she has substituted/emphasized anger to avoid feeling any emotional pain the conflict has caused.
- Once the client is in hypnosis, I help him or her to feel and acknowledge the hurt the original incident caused. I would also employ therapeutic-guided imagery and desensitization techniques to help the person work through the triggers that continue to incite the anger and hurt. I do not use age-regression techniques to bring up these triggers, I will desensitize the client only to the memories/associations that he or she remembers and has described during an alert/aware state.
- I will use more deepening/relaxation techniques and guided imagery to help the person forgive him- or herself for having been in a position to have been hurt, in the first place. Next, I will use these techniques to help the client also forgive the other person for doing whatever he or she did to cause the original pain in the first place.
Marc
Gravelle, a former instructor of the Hypnosis
Motivation Institute, once advised: “As long as you remain angry at a
person, you’re giving him permission to control you physically, emotionally and
intellectually. When you forgive the other person, you’re not giving him
permission to do ‘whatever.’ He’s still guilty
of doing that, but you (the client) can move on and the other person no longer
controls you.”
© 2015
