Choosing one of the Case Studies That You Developed Within Your Group During the Class, Explain the Cause of the Person’s Symptoms and Construct a Hypnoanalysis Treatment Plan and Required Outcome.

Choosing one of the case studies that you developed within your group during the class, explain the cause of the person’s symptoms and construct a hypnoanalysis treatment plan and required outcome.

Miss S is a 26 year old woman. She lives with her partner of 2 years and works as a social work assistant, a job that she enjoys, as she feels that she can help others. Miss S describes her relationship with her boyfriend as good and hopes that they will get married in the next few years. However despite Miss S’s life appearing to be good on the surface, she has sought out hypnotherapy due to having trouble sleeping. This is an issue that she has suffered from on and off throughout her life, but it has become particularly bad in the last 6 months, since she bought a flat with her partner. In this essay I intend to explain the cause of Miss S’s sleeping difficulties and create a treatment plan for her using hypnoanalysis. I will explain what hypnoanalysis is and how I feel that it could help Miss S to deal with issues in the past, in order for her to be able to move on with her life. I will also show how the course of treatment that I decide upon, is both appropriate and ethical.

During my first meeting with Miss S, I will fill in an initial consultation form and take a case history. I will also need to establish that there are no ethical issues that will prevent me from working with Miss S: that she is not related to me in anyway and that she is not suffering from any psychoses. I will need to establish her goal: to have a full night’s sleep every night, and explain to her how hypnotherapy could help her to achieve this goal. As hypnotherapy helps to change and recondition negative patterns of behaviour, it is a very effective tool for dealing with sleep deprivation.

In order to deal with a sleep disorder, I will need to seek out the root cause of Miss S’s inability to sleep at night. It is therefore imperative that I take a detailed case history. When discussing her family history Miss S tells me that when she was 4 years old her parents split up. Her father consequently disappeared out of her life. As an only child her mother was very dependent on her to begin with. However she gradually began drinking more and more and spending more and more time with her new boyfriend. Miss S does not remember a lot about this traumatic time in her early childhood. However she does have a vague memory of lying awake at night sometimes feeling anxious as her mother was out and she had no idea when she would come back and in what state. Eventually her mother abandoned her completely and disappeared with her boyfriend. She was taken into care and formally adopted at the age of 6. Miss S describes her relationship with her adoptive parents as very good. She was loved and looked after and thereafter had a lovely childhood. She met her boyfriend two years ago and describes their relationship as good. She feels that he is the right person for her and they have discussed marriage. However 6 months ago, when they moved in together, Miss S began having sleep difficulties. She says that she lies awake at night feeling anxious and panicky and that it is particularly bad when her boyfriend goes out and she goes to bed alone. She admits that she is beginning to resent her boyfriend and his ability to sleep soundly every night. She also bickers with him a lot during the day, as she is so tired and grumpy. Although he is very concerned and understanding, she knows that she is causing problems in their relationship, by not wanting him to go out as it affects her sleeping. She desperately wants to be able to sleep better, so that she can feel happy and secure again in her relationship.

In order to further explore Miss S’s insomnia I would like to use hypnoanalysis. This is “a combination of investigative analytical techniques and the hypnotic state.” It is used to uncover any events and/or emotions that affected an individual in the past and that are still affecting them, albeit subconsciously, in the present. It is clear that the root causes of Miss S’s sleep issues lie in her early childhood. Sometimes a build-up of small events (in Miss S’s instance, her mother frequently leaving her on her own at a very young age in order to go out drinking and returning home drunk and incapable of looking after her), can cause “an accumulation of subconscious anxiety in a person. This situation is described as ‘cumulative trauma’.” In order to effectively deal with this, I need to identify for her the source of the problem and resolve it at its origin. This should then effect positive and permanent change for her, instead of merely dealing with the symptom – inability to sleep.

Miss S knows about and understands what happened to her as a small child: she says her adoptive parents have been very open in explaining to her what they know. However she has not linked her sleep issues to the trauma she experienced then, fearing that they are a more recent problem and something to do with her relationship with her boyfriend – in particular with moving in with him. However it is clear to me, as her hypnotherapist, that she has suffered a simple cumulative trauma – where there has been a repetition of a negative situation (her mother neglecting her and drinking) whilst she was young. Miss S’s anxiety when she was young probably caused her to have sleep issues then. She would likely lie awake at night, worried about being by herself and anxious about when her mother would return and in what state. It is apparent that this anxiety is reoccurring now as she is subconsciously worries the same about her boyfriend when he goes out.

It is crucial to use the right kind of questioning when engaging a client in hypnoanalysis. The clue to Miss S’s sleep difficulties lie in her subconscious and she may not be aware of them. As her hypnotherapist, I need to “put the pieces of the client’s life together.” However as an ethical hypnotherapist I must ensure that I do not assume anything and do not inflict my own thoughts about why Miss S can’t sleep onto her as the client. The type of questioning that I ask is therefore imperative. Using the word “because” instead of “why” will help Miss S to focus more clearly on the information that I need to unearth: her answers will likely be more direct.

During our hypnoanalysis sessions I would like to regress Miss S: to take her back to the point where cumulative trauma took place. However I would not do this immediately. It is crucial to build a rapport with each and every client, and to gain their trust. I also need Miss S’s consent in order to regress her. Therefore in the first two sessions I would merely work with Miss S on her issues with sleep, giving her coping strategies and reprogramming her thought patterns