An Unusual Interaction with the Imagination

Any clinician who has used clinical hypnosis for many years will encounter some unusual accounts from patients. My approach has been to accept and deal with patient reports at face value (Anbar, 2021). I believe that categorically expressing doubt about the truthfulness or reality of patient stories can disrupt the relationship between patients and their clinicians that serves as a foundation for successful therapy. This approach does not preclude a discussion with the patients about the possibility that a story may represent a metaphor or have been made-up by their imagination.

In my experience, a face value approach to a patient story can often lead to a therapeutic resolution, even when the story appears to be of a fanciful nature. This observation should not be a surprise, since much clinical hypnosis work that is associated with major clinical improvement involves use of imaginary metaphors.

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As an example of an unusual account and resolution of its associated symptoms, in this blog post I present the story told by a 14-year-old patient who was being seen for anxiety. During the month before the described encounter, the patient reported seeing a man in a dark suit following him in the shadows throughout the day. He told me he thought this man was a demon, and that his name was Leviathan. Despite his symptoms, the patient was performing well in school, had friends, and was an active participant in extracurricular school activities.

The patient was Lutheran and informed me that the sum of his religious education was “Happy Jesus stories” that he learned about in Sunday School. In this blog, I have changed the patient’s name to “Daniel.”

Daniel already had learned how to use hypnosis to calm himself, and to interact with his subconscious. He had the ability to engage in “automatic talking” through which his subconscious could talk directly to me. Usually, when he realerted from hypnosis Daniel was unable to recollect what his subconscious had discussed with me.

The Encounter with Leviathan

I asked Daniel’s subconscious to allow me to talk directly to Leviathan, which he agreed to do through automatic talking.

(You can read the transcipt-Trigger warning)

Outcome

Daniel never saw Leviathan again. And I was left with questions. Why did this story come into his mind? Was it a metaphor for some of his fears? How is it that Daniel was able to see Hebrew that he never studied and didn’t understand? Was it a coincidence that Daniel was working with me, as a clinician who was well versed in Hebrew and the Bible? How did he come up with such a mythic sounding story?

I started to investigate the story of Leviathan on the internet. It turned out that the story of Leviathan appears in the Talmud. It is described there that God kills the female Leviathan, but there is no mention that she was a sister, nor is there a mention of a silver necklace.

Read the full available article at Psychology Today

Reflection: Do you belive in clinical hypnosis? Why/Why not?

#Hypnosis #Clinical #Therapeutic