Blushing Treatment through Hypnosis - Math Problem Example

BLUSHING Abstract This case study is about social anxiety or ‘blushing’ treatment through hypnosis for a 25-year-old female with a legitimate reason for seeking blushing control. Miss B willingly disclosed her social anxieties during the initial consultation and her enthusiasm to accept hypnotic treatment for the sake of her profession and future. Her initial treatment started with a statement explaining the process and the outcome of her present course of action. Later, I asked her to imagine consciously what it would be like to lose her job and be thrown out of her apartment for unpaid bills and being rejected by other company because of her disability. Subsequently, preparation for hypnotic treatment commences and she went to a deeper state of relaxation. While in a trance, her subconscious mind listens to the therapist voice, speaking of ways on how to control blushing. Shortly in the same state, her subconscious mind listens to reasoning and persuasion, converting her to a strong-minded person filled with confidence. The session went well and she encouragingly responded to hypnosis. Although there are some limitations in the treatment approach, the overall outcome of the session is satisfactory and rewarding. i. Initial Consultation A 25-year-old sales assistant, Miss B. has been working for five years in a big department store and she is a good friend of mine. Since she is a person of legal age that does not need parental consent and no information other than her stress problems will be recorded, I believe that there is no significant ethical issue involved in her treatment. She admits that she is chronically nervous in social situations particularly when she meets new people and talks to her bosses. She also often experiences memory lapses during interactions. More importantly, during these encounters, she perceives that others are uninterested or rejecting her, which causes her to feel distressed and unable to say anything during the conversation. She is now afraid (after having been warned by her employer a couple of times) that she might lose her job if she continues to act in this way whilst at work. Her distinctive enthusiasm to undergo therapy is genuinely convincing and using a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate Miss B’s motivation to find ways to cope with blushing or extreme social anxiety stress as a 9. When asked about what she thinks may have caused her persistent difficulties, she mentioned some significant negative events of her life, such as rejection/ a denied promotion/ physical punishment during childhood/ public humiliation. Miss B. is undoubtedly influenced by the actions of other people and suffering from blushing, which is a manifestation of social anxiety. Occurrences of social anxiety are sometimes accompanied by increased blood flow to the face, a reaction that is identified as blushing. In a fair-skinned person such as Miss B., blushing easily manifests as a reddening or darkening of the face, neck, ears, and upper chest. However, in this case the client describes it as appearing first as blotches of red that look like a rash on her upper chest, neck, and jaw. It then spreads slowly upwards and often reaches its peak in several seconds. Her creeping blushes tend to occur when she feels she is being scrutinized and evaluated. Since Miss B. is probably experiencing social anxiety in general, I feel it is best to focus the treatment sessions on social anxiety reduction skills and its positive benefits. ii. Initial Treatment I started the initial treatment by gently saying the following course of action will not be pleasant but it is an important part of the process to think about the outcome of her present action. I asked her to think about selling as a very rewarding profession and a job where you can get a feeling of helping customers and increasing your company’s competitive advantage. I let her imagine how it will be like to lose her job and thrown out of her apartment for not paying the bill or unable to land a new job because she was terminated with disability and nobody wants to hire her. Then think about her family and friends, the conflict she will bring to their lives and the difficulties she will face on her own, out of work and a person with a gloomy future. Finally, I started the conversation on how it would feel to go through the process, look back, and know she could have cope with blushing and maybe prevented the above scenario from happening. At this stage, I asked the client to gently close her eyes and let herself become limp and focus her mind to what I am going to say. I told her that I am going gently pick up her arm and she must remain limp. I slowly run one finger up from the tip of her finger to her wrist and remind her that tingling sensation will continue even after I stopped touching her. Assured, I did the same thing again but this time she will feel slight movements in the fingers of her hand, little twitching movements that occur involuntarily but as the movements stop her hand will be back to normal. I told her she’s doing fine as I run my finger up that hand and arm once more until she feel her hand and arm becoming lighter and lighter, light as soft feather, and light as the warm air around her. If she can let go of it completely, I told her it would float up away from my hand and into the air. She will feel the wonderful pleasant feeling of weightlessness as her arms floats soothingly upwards and as it rises up higher into the air. She let herself sink gently and easily into an even more relaxed and comfortable state as she sinks deeper into trance. She is now completely relaxed from the top of her head all the way to the tips of her toes while her arm rest comfortably. While in a trance, I let her imagine entering a lovely large, warm, airy lift, filled with big soft and fluffy cushions. The door opens; she steps inside, and cannot resist lying on the heap of soft downy cushions. I asked her to notice the velvet panelled walls with large, smooth, golden buttons marked down from ten to G. I told her that G represents the ground floor and the numbers above it are the succeeding floors. She eagerly presses a button and the lift begins to move. From 10 to 9 to 8 to 7 as she feels more comfortable and very relaxed while the lift goes further down. Finally, the door opens at the first floor but she will not leave because she knows that there is even deeper level of relaxation down there. She sinks deeper with the lift down to the basement as she reaches the ultimate relaxation while the lift slowly comes to a halt. Her curiosity causes her to step outside only to discover a more relaxing room full of velvets, silks, and fine satin upholsteries. She is now being drawn to a big easy chair with a soft velvet cushions and sits there comfortably. At this stage, I let her imagine a two-meter ruler standing on the ground with the numbers from one hundred to zero etched on it. I told her from now on she would be able to close her eyes whenever and wherever she needs to see this ruler. I explained to her that the pointer measures her subconscious rate of comfort and when her calm and relax this pointer will be way down. Similarly, I added, when your tense or uptight this pointer will move towards the hundred. I asked her to look at the pointer and tell me the number it points to while she is in deep relaxation. Afterwards, I told to her to think of a particularly embarrassing situation that can make her feel self-conscious and experience the blood rising up into her face as she began to blush. I let check the rule again and see where it points to. Then I told her to forget to let go of that memory and relax even deeper than before, calm and relax while watching the pointer drop slowly but clearly. I assured her that she will feel calmer whenever she visualize the pointer drops down and I asked her to practice this in the future, lowering the pointer down and further down. Finally, I told her that in the future, when she begins to blush for embarrassment, she can always close her eyes and visualized the pointer dropping further. Her face will immediately cools down and returns to its normal colour. At the count of one to five, I let her slowly lift from her deep state of relaxation feeling refreshed and revitalized and her mind and body returning to normality. iii. Subsequent Session and Treatment Although the client can practice similar relaxation repeatedly by herself in other places, reporting is an essential to determine how my client is dealing with blushing. A follow-up session to review the effectiveness of the initial hypnotic treatment is therefore required and I asked her to call me from time to time so that I can assess her progress. If I detect that my client is still experiencing some form of social anxiety or she still blushes in certain situations, I will then asked her to attend another session. However, the future session will be more likely on issues related in developing more self-confidence and willpower. More importantly, I will discuss with her that severe blushing can make a person more confused and bewildered. They lost the ability to think deviously or act dangerously. iv. End of Treatment The treatment ended successfully as the client at the end of the session positively responded to hypnosis. However, her future progress is still crucial to the overall success of the treatment and the possibility of another session depends on her strength and determination to succeed. Moreover, blushing is undeniably coming from different social factors influencing her actions and behaviour. She may encounter newer ones and those that are becoming more and more demanding and requires more and more tolerance and confidence. v. Limit and Flaws The preceding session is an ideal situation since the client is in fear of losing her job and the treatment might work for as long as she maintains her present enthusiasm to recover and continue working in her profession. However, follow-up and monitoring are still essential since her case actually started when she was still young and we cannot be sure unless we found her filled with confidence. Furthermore, although I planned my approach carefully and it appears appropriate, I am certain that there are still some improvements required and a much better way to deal with such problems. vi. Conclusion The blushing problem of Miss. B actually started when she was younger and just became prominent while working. However, she is maybe not aware that she is already experiencing this problem before since blushing in its early stage is ignorable until some memory lapses occurs in the passing of time. Her enthusiasm to seek help in fear of losing her job (after being warned by her employer a couple of times) is an important factor to consider in the future success of her treatment. Although the initial treatment went smoothly and Miss B’s responded favourably to the hypnosis, subsequent session is still possible depending on the amount of confidence she will have after the fist session. However, if another session is really necessary based on the degree of development, I intend to use a different approach that would likely focus on developing more self-esteem. Overall, I am aware that my method still needs some more improvement thus further study and research is indispensable. vii. Pre-treatment Client Notes Before Hypnosis: Q1. How young are you Miss B? Q2. Do you have a family? Q3. Since when you feel, you are having extreme blushing or social anxiety. Q4. What are those unusual things you noticed about yourself, your work, your social interaction, and your perception of other people? Q5. How determined are you to cope with blushing? Q6. How do you feel about hypnosis? After Hypnosis: Q.1. How do you feel now? Q.2. Do you have any question or anything you want to discuss. Q.3. Do you feel relaxed, aware, and in control of yourself? Q.4. Are you going to call me from time to time to report your progress? Q.4. Is there anything more you would like to ask before we end the session. Read More