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