Hypnotherapy and Erik Erikson's Stages of Development

 According to psychologist Erik Erikson, personality develops throughout a person’s lifetime. In other words, you “become” the person you are, starting from birth until you die. Each stage is characterized or punctuated by a specific goal that you must achieve to progress to the next stage of development. If you do not overcome that challenge, however, you will continue to be affected by the unresolved issue that is associated with the stage of development in which you are stuck.

Dr. John Kappas incorporated Erikson’s Stages of Development into his therapeutic approach. The Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder believed that hypnotherapists must always try to alleviate a client’s presenting issue “symptomatically.” However, if that approach doesn’t work it may be necessary to uncover the cause of the person’s presenting problem.

“Many conditions may be ‘relieved’ later in life if they’re not completed,” Dr. Kappas said. “We always attempt to fulfill what’s missing.” If a client is stuck in one of these stages, the hypnotherapist must explain the stages of development and discuss where/why the conflict arose. It may also be necessary to explore why the stage of development hasn’t been completed, he explained.

However, Dr. Kappas warned that age-regression therapy should not be used to identify the cause of a client’s presenting problem that developed during one of those stages. This technique could inadvertently expose a host of other issues that the person had previously repressed or dealt with, which the hypnotherapist would have to help the individual address all over again. Furthermore, HMI does not endorse age-regression as a form of therapy and legal courts do not admit any evidence obtained using this method.

The goal of the therapy is to help the client resolve this conflict and set appropriate goals that are appropriate to facilitate progression to the stage of development that is appropriate for the client’s age, he said. Following is a summary of Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development:

Stage 1: Infancy (oral-sensory, birth-1 year). Conflict: trust vs. mistrust. Important event: feeding.

Stage 2: Early Childhood (muscular-anal, 1-3 years). Conflict: autonomy vs. doubt. Important events: Toilet training, suggestibility.

Stage 3: Play Age (locomotor, 3-6 years). Conflict: initiative vs. guilt. Important event: Independence.

Stage 4: School Age (6-12 years). Conflict: industry vs. inferiority (competence). Important event: School.

Stage 5: Puberty and Adolescence (12-18 years). Conflict: identity vs. role confusion. Important event: Peer relationship.

Stage 6: Young Adulthood (19-40 years). Conflict: intimacy/affiliation and love vs. isolation. Important event: Love relationships.

Stage 7: Middle Age (40-65 years). Conflict: generativity vs. stagnation/self-absorption. Important event: parenting.

Stage 8: Later life (Maturity, 65 years to death). Conflict: integrity vs. despair. Reflection on and acceptance of one’s life.

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

Two Sides of the Same Coin, Redux

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

It is easy to go off course during a project. You don’t know what to say when someone asks you a question during a presentation at work. You forget how to play a piece of music at a recital for which you have spent months rehearsing. Time seems to stop as that crucial event and the split second in which “it” occurred are burned into your mind and memory, forever. But time continues to march on and, you still have your life to lead and that project/performance/game, etc. to complete. When your focus is disturbed, are you able to maintain your composure and carry on as if nothing is changed? Will you use the disruption to your advantage, or will you freeze and miss out on later opportunities to recover because you are still focused on what has already happened?

I saw both scenarios play out yesterday afternoon while I watched the Super Bowl 50. Unlike their disappointing Super Bowl outing against the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, the Denver Broncos gained control of the football early on and never really allowed their opposing team, the Carolina Panthers, to get it back. This year the Broncos kept a respectable point advantage and kept powering through the game. It was as if each interception, each sack, each block of the opposing side added another layer of confidence to the Broncos’ players. I knew that Denver was not a heavy favorite to win the game. However, the sentimental poignancy of Broncos Quarterback Peyton Manning possibly retiring from the NFL with a second Super Bowl championship was very alluring. (I admit it: I wanted that for him, too.) Coming from a “football” family—dad Archie Manning played in the NFL and younger brother Eli Manning is a quarterback for the New York Giants)—achieving this goal would be a very satisfying (possible) finish to his storied career.

A few days ago I had heard that Cam Newton, the Quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, was finishing high school senior when Peyton Manning won his first Super Bowl Championship in 2007. While I watched the game yesterday, I wondered what it was like for this young quarterback to be competing against the man who could very well have been a onetime role model and career inspiration. Did Newton have or model pass/play strategies that he once saw the former Indianapolis Colts Quarterback use to score one of many touchdowns? At nearly 40 years old, Manning is like an energizer bunny that just doesn’t seem to run out of energy. While his fans cheer, how intimidating must it be for a much younger athlete like Newton to wonder: how much advantage his strength and skill will I have and need to out-play equally talented and much more experienced player? Was the scenario like the famous scenes in Seabiscuit, where the horse only needed to look into his competitors’ eyes to sufficiently intimidate any opponent to make a virtually unchallenged run for the finish line? This kind of pressure can definitely feel soul-destroying.

At the end of the game, the Denver Broncos had more spring in their step on the field and on the sidelines while the Carolina Panthers were stuck in an endless loop of that first scrimmage—just as their opponents had been two years ago. Once again, I could see the frustration and disappointment on the team’s faces and, more importantly, in their demeanor. Each time a pass was intercepted or one of the Panthers was sacked or the football was intercepted, everyone on the team seemed to deflate a little bit more while their opponents got that much bigger.

The Denver Broncos had learned hard lessons from the experience of their disappointing play in the 2014 Super Bowl, while the Carolina Panthers had only played in one Super Bowl (2004). It would be completely understandable and expected that the novelty of the Big Game experience and the competitive presence of a record-breaking quarterback to send the Panthers into a kind of subconscious experiential overload. Despite their obvious talent and seeming lightning-quick speed, this time the Panthers weren’t able to effectively defend against the opposing team’s “defense” against them.

Two sides of the same coin.

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

Thoughts of the Day

Photo by Sara Fogan

      Every now and then I like (and need) to take a few moments and remind myself about what is really important to me, in my life. If you follow me on my Calminsense Hypnotherapy Facebook page you may have seen some of these quotes before on this page, or will in the future. Many of these Quotes of the Day are beautiful examples and illustrations of the work I do as a hypnotherapist, so I will probably draw on them in future essays.

• “Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” – The Imitation Game

• “Success is never final and failure never fatal. It’s courage that counts.” – George R. Tilton

• “You say I dream too big. I say you think too small.” – Anonymous

• “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.” – Aristotle

• “A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.” – Hugh Downs

• “Intuition is knowing without knowing how you know.” – Healing Art Forms Institute

• “It helps if you remember that everyone is doing their best from their level of consciousness.” – Deepak Chopra

• “Fools take a knife and stab people in the back. The wise take a knife, cut the cord & free themselves from the fools.” – Unknown

• “If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.” – The Random Path

• “Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, remember how far you have come. Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won, and all the fears you have overcome.” – Unknown

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