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| Photo by Rick Hustead |
As
with any behavior-modification program—which hypnotherapy is, by the way—clients
typically come in with a list of all the things they believe are “wrong” with
them. They can’t stay away from sweet or high-calorie/high-fat foods. They can’t
give up cigarettes. They can’t get over the former spouse or lover and accept
that the relationship is truly over. They don’t like to be or even feel safe
when they are outside their comfort zone, an area that may not extend beyond the
confines of their home. They “completely freak out” when they see a spider. And
so on.
In addition to changing
or abolishing the negative behavior, clients often want to know how it took
hold in the first place. I couch this explanation in the context of John Kappas, Ph.D.’s model, Theory
of Mind. Basically, the person learned
to do “x” or adopted “y” belief by imitating, or modeling, these behaviors they observed
in their social environment. A parent or guardian, peer or another role model explicitly
or implicitly taught the individual to do it, and the person derived some kind
of reward for doing it, too.
Another
factor comes into play here, too: constant repetition of the behavior
reinforces its strength and significance in the subconscious mind. There is a
lot of truth to the expression, “Perfect practice makes perfect performance,”
and this is especially true when it comes to reinforcing any behavior in
the subconscious mind. Remember, the SCM does not know the difference between
fantasy and reality, objective observation and a joke. So long as the behavior
is giving the person some kind of positive feedback (pleasure), the individual
will continue to do (practice) that activity. Furthermore, this practice is
perfect, as far as the subconscious mind is concerned.
I
help my hypnotherapy clients change unwanted behaviors or beliefs by rewriting the
content of the subconscious
mental script that previously reinforced those old patterns. Since
everything we do and believe has been learned, these patterns can also be
corrected and even un-learned when we decide they no longer work for us or
serve our best interest. Then we can create a different, positive mental script
and continue to reinforce the behaviors and attitudes that will help us
accomplish our new 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/.
© 2016
