Hypnoanalysis

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the ‘the colour of my car is?’ and then progresses on to questions that include feelings like ‘I feel insecure when?’ and ‘when I think of my father.....’. This will help train Mr P in the conscious to bring out emotions and the feelings of emotions and will help the therapist when they start with regression and will help the regression sessions more positive.

Free Association

In free association the therapist will ask Mr P to say everything that comes to his mind regardless of how silly or trivial it seems. The therapist will then listen carefully to the revelations that come out of Mr P’s thoughts without interrupting him. The therapist then needs to note the difference between cognitive responses (those thoughts not associated with emotions, for instance ‘I came home from school when I was around 12 to have my mom tell me my dad had moved out’, and emotional responses ‘I came from school when I was around 12 to have my mom tell my dad moved out, I remember running upstairs to my room crying because I was so upset.’

Inner Child Therapy

If we had a childhood free from trauma the state of our inner child will not our adult experience and personality. The inner child is hidden away, it has never grown up and still feels as a child might. It requires encouragement from the older self to allow expression of thought to an adult self (this is important to Mr P as the picture of other adults might have been seen as being untrustworthy because of his father leaving). The child’s emotions would have formed Mr P’s belief system and have a direct impact on his adult life. Allowing him to make an emotional connection with his younger self, giving reassurance and love where it was lacking. This may need to be done on several occasions to enforce the feeling of ‘belonging’ and being wanted, which in turn will help him with relationships in the present.

Regression

Forgotten experiences can be rediscovered and relived with regression. Within this there will be both positive and negative ones, but therapists normally deal with the negative ones to try and understand how they were caused and why we hold onto them. For it to work there must be total trust between therapist and client. Mr P would have to understand that as this is a journey to where some significant life experiences took place there will be abreactions (the expression and release of a previously repressed emotion ). Often clients can be concerned or worried that they will remember more than they can handle but a therapist needs to remind them that the subconscious will only give up as much as it wants to, to protect the client from divulging more than is necessary for their own well-being.

There are many ways that a therapist can regress clients for instance:

- Corridors or tunnels of time leading from their special place

- Attics full of old memories or photos

- Libraries of memories

- Letting the subconscious drift back in time going through their ages

Assessing Mr P it would be best to allow his subconscious to drift back in time.

Ethical Issues

- Mr P must be confident of the trust, confidentiality and ultimate bond between him and the therapist. The therapist needs to explain that there would be several sessions in order to make lasting changes

- As the therapist works with Mr P and they find that as they delve deeper that his trauma seems to more compound than simple they need to refer him on to more experienced therapist to help him move on

- The therapist must allow for the possibility of hidden agenda and secondary gains

Treatment Plan

Before delving into Mr P’s past, the therapist needs to work on his confidence and anxiety.

- Week 1: Work on Mr P’s confidence and anxiety and introduce ideo-motor signalling

- Week 2: Back up previous session with deepener. Incorporate suggestions to allow

Mr P to improve his self-esteem and dealings with

- Week 3: Move on to Accessing Emotions.

- Week 4: Dependent on the outcome of session 3, this next stage could be Inner Child or Regression. This might take a number of sessions to be most affective.

Required Outcome

- To make peace with his father leaving him.

- To be confident in future relationships and help Mr P believe that he is able to have and keep long term relationships

Conclusion

By helping Mr P come to terms with his father leaving him through the above mentioned treatment plan I believe that he will be able to make lasting changes in his life in order to pursue a long term