HypnoCounseling Case Studies
Gale Glassner Twersky, A.C.H., Ct. A.H.
1. Tinnitis / Trauma
A female teacher in her late fifties had suffered for five years with constant loud ringing in both of her ears. The annoying ringing was getting progressively worse making it very difficult to sleep and also disrupted her ability to function daily. During hypnosis, she learned that, five years previously, she had experienced a trauma of great embarrassment regarding falling asleep in an inappropriate situation. In order to protect her from re-experiencing such a humiliating event, her subconscious chose to give her the ringing in the ears which did effectively stop her from repeating the embarrassing behavior of falling asleep inappropriately. However, unintentionally this subconscious solution also stopped her from appropriate, necessary sleep at bedtime. While in hypnosis, she released this unwanted subconscious response and directed her subconscious to silence the ringing in her ears. She followed the protocol of listening to her personalized hypnosis CD every day for 30 days consecutively. After a period of about five weeks, she reported the ringing was no longer loud enough to bother her and she had been able to sleep well at night. ^ back to top
2. Nervous Habit: Public Speaking
A professional woman in her early thirties working on Wall Street found she was blinking profusely whenever she was in front of the TV camera lights. Nothing she could do consciously would stop it. She chose hypnosis to find an alternative approach to stop the excessive blinking. During hypnosis she found her uncontrollable blinking was a protective measure chosen by her subconscious literally to block her uneasiness and fear regarding being in front of the TV camera. Subsequently, through only two hypnosis sessions, she was able to completely eliminate the abnormal amount of eye blinking and actually relax and enjoy the TV work. ^ back to top
3. Relationships
This young professional woman in her early forties kept focusing most all of her attention on her children to the great unhappiness of her spouse. This inattentiveness to her husband was unintentional as she really loved him completely. Hypnosis helped her focus more on her husband and allowed her to show her affection to him more openly with holding his hand, speaking lovingly to him, hugging and kissing him in public. He responded much more favorably and their relationship improved. ^ back to top
4. Fear of Choking
A mother brought her 8 year old young son who was seeking help to stop his fear of choking on his food. The mother was forced to puree all of this child's food because in this boy’s mind any substantial particle represented an opportunity for choking. Hypnosis revealed that within the last year, the boy experienced a choking incident that terrified him. It was as if his subconscious knew he did not want that horrific choking feeling again, so it protected him by creating the fear of choking on any solid food. The end result of the fear was that he couldn't eat any solid food. Fortunately, through HypnoCounseling the boy released fears of choking on his food and instead, gained confidence that he could eat carefully while avoiding any problems with swallowing his food. He responded well to the hypnosis suggestions and happily, the boy was eating normally within approximately 6 weeks. ^ back to top
5. Self-esteem
During his childhood this 48 year old man, was told by his father that he was worthless. This message had stuck in his subconscious and had become part of his belief system. During hypnosis he gained insight into this belief and realized this was not an accurate self-assessment. He released that belief/mind set and accepted his approved suggestions that he is a very valuable and worthy human being. This in turn, released the negative effects of his stress. He presently functions as a much happier, more self-confident individual who feels much better about himself and his value. ^ back to top
Self-esteem/Menopause (see listing under menopause).
6. Smoking
A forty year old female counselor despite numerous attempts could not stop smoking on her own. A relative had forced her to smoke when she was just eight years old and this event had cemented in her subconscious the need to smoke. Even though the cigarettes tasted awful, it was an exciting, adult-like thing to do. Through hypnosis suggestion, she released the need to smoke. She recognized that smoking was neither something she liked, nor wanted as part of herself. ^ back to top
7. Test Taking Anxiety
This 35 year old policeman had tried to pass his promotional exam but his anxiety interfered and he had performed much below his capability. With training in hypnosis techniques he learned to relax and use all his powers of concentration to complete the test tasks easily. He also increased confidence in his ability to perform well and to let go of all the stress related to the test results. He only focused on the questions and problem solving rather than thinking about how he was doing and whether he would pass the test or not. He reported that the next time he took the exam he passed and achieved his promotion. ^ back to top
8. Back Pain
This 37 year old painter had experienced a very serious car accident that caused permanent damage to his back. He was in constant pain and the doctors were unable to provide much relief. Surgery was not a viable option and he was told that he would just have to live with the pain. At night, he had to sleep on a recliner because the bed was too painful. At night he was unable to sleep for more than 2 hours from which he would awake without being able to fall back asleep due to the pain. This client learned to self-administer pain relief through hypnotic visual imagery. His life changed dramatically as he was able to sleep much longer and if he awoke, he could get back to sleep right away. His biggest enjoyment was working on his car, something he had been unable to do for years since the car accident. Approximately 6 weeks after his first session, he completed fixing his car, the work that he had always dreamed of doing. ^ back to top
9. Grief
When her mother died a few years ago, this 42 year old homemaker felt part of herself and her life died with her mother. A part of her was missing and life was no longer as joyful and complete as it once was. She could not escape these melancholy feelings and it adversely affected her relationships with family and friends. Hypnosis helped this client regain the part of herself that she had lost with her mother's death. She was able to finally come to terms with her deep grief and loss and realized that she had a lot of living left to enjoy. She released the stress that was trapped within her. These emotionally powerful realizations were directly communicated to her on the subconscious level. Instead of retaining the stressful, negative feelings of grief, she followed the hypnosis suggestions to form new mind sets from which she could create positive attitudes and behaviors. And that’s exactly what she did.
Grief Related to a Pet
This 38 year old decorator lived alone with her beloved dog companion. Tragically, after 10 years, the dog contracted a fatal illness and the owner had to put her dog to sleep. The woman was grief stricken at the loss. She came for HypnoCounseling to pull herself together after her greatest friend had passed. Through the help of hypnosis guiding her subconscious, the woman perceived a communication with her dog complete with information from the conversation that was meaningful and profound. The experience gave the woman closure returning her to a state of peace, love for her dog and appreciation of their precious time together. ^ back to top
10. Memory Improvement
This 48 year old chiropractor needed to complete very complicated medical reports which demanded great concentration, focus and memory. He found that he would get in the middle of a report and sometimes lose his train of thought. This caused great frustration, stress and time management issues. After a hypnosis session in which he realized why his mind wandered and his memory faltered, he downloaded new suggestions for his subconscious so he could have greater focus, concentration and memory. Thus, he improved his accuracy, speed and concentration on these reports and dramatically reduced his stress levels. ^ back to top
11. Neck Pain / Relationships
This fifty-five year old professional woman found there was a literal as well as figurative link between the terrible neck pain she was suffering and the stress she suffered relating to her spouse. Although the neck pain had originated from a whip lash in a car accident, it had never been totally eliminated rather it seemed to flair up unexpectedly especially when she was feeling that her husband was “a pain in the neck.” Under hypnosis she recognized that the "pain in the neck" symbolized the result of the stress between her and her husband. She further recognized that when she repressed her anger and emotions regarding him, she would feel the neck pain. Through HypnoCounseling she understood that by expressing her feelings and communicating her needs to her husband, her neck pain would be alleviated. And she did just that with positive results. ^ back to top
12. Past Life Hypnosis
Belief in past lives or reincarnation is not required. Past Life Hypnosis utilizes the client’s description and understanding of a past life in order to resolve a current issue the client is experiencing. Sometimes while in hypnosis identifying what initiated their current stress issue, clients spontaneously remember another lifetime. It is unimportant whether the client believes in the existence of a past life; it is only important what comes to light from the journey into another existence. Sometimes a person may describe another life where she may have died in a highly traumatic way, such as from a tidal wave as is the case for one particular woman described below.
This fifty-one year old teacher perceived when in hypnosis that she was Polynesian and had suffered losing her entire family, entire village and of course, her own life due to a terrifying tidal wave. She had such immense grief and sorrow from this tragedy that it seemed to be related to her present day inability to stop crying/sobbing when faced with anything "sad." During hypnosis, she was able to cleanse the effect of the tidal wave story; and, from then on, she no longer had the uncontrollable crying/sobbing response to “sad” news or events. ^ back to top
13. Asthma
A twenty-one year old recent college grad had been suffering from asthma most all his life. Under hypnosis, he visualized a situation when he was just a toddler lying on a beach blanket. His parents were beyond his vision and he remembers feeling abandoned and terrified. He cried so hard that he lost his breath and started wheezing. His parents, who were actually still close by, came running, picked him up soothed and reassured him. Subconsciously, he learned that if he wheezed, his parents would always give him attention, affection and protection. So this evolved into an asthmatic condition which he really did not want! His subconscious was directed to release this asthmatic response and instead download his current condition as always breathing with comfort and ease. ^ back to top
14. PMS
A twenty-eight year old client in the holistic arts had severe pains accompanied by feelings of depression and unhappiness right before her periods. Hypnosis helped her recall that she had experienced incidents in grade school where she was teased mercilessly for being a girl. Her subconscious responded to her negative feelings about being female and it had retained them as her reality. Her subconscious was reminding this young woman how badly she resented being female by giving her literal pains and depression about her female reproductive system. After all, each time she menstruated, her gender and all the negative feelings were emphasized. Through the use of hypnotic suggestions she worked on reframing her subconscious thoughts about being female into more positive terms and successfully eliminated the negative feelings and pain. ^ back to top
15. Fear of Closed in Spaces
This forty-five year old writer/artist had a fear of being in closed in spaces. This made airplane travel especially difficult. She would have a panic attack when she boarded an airplane. In fact, anytime she was in tight quarters such as a plane she felt a loss of control causing nausea, sweating and fainting. During her hypnosis session she visualized that her problem actually started as a fetus in her mother's womb. She sensed feeling very frightened in the dark, watery place where she could not see clearly. After she was able to identify this fear in the womb connection, she released her fears of closed in places/spaces through hypnotic visualization. She returned home the next day by plane without experiencing and of these prior symptoms. ^ back to top
16. Nightmares, Anxiety, Fears, Pain
A sixty-two year old social worker chose HypnoCounseling to help with her nightmares, anxiety, disorientation and physical pain. The medical tests revealed no definitive answers. The doctors were unable to help; they only monitored her. Through hypnosis she was able to change her nightmares into much calmer, non-threatening dreams. She also learned the tools for interpreting her dreams. Once she understood her dreams, this permitted communication from her subconscious levels to her conscious awareness. She also was able to release fears and anxiety which had been causing her great stress. She became optimistic, finally recognizing that at last she had control over her life again. While still under her doctor’s care, she was slowly able to function better and better without her medication. While her hypnosis sessions continued over a much longer period of time than most cases, hers was an unusually complex, multi-faceted situation which had started over twenty years before. Fortunately, she made steady improvements throughout the time she was seen for hypnosis which was off and on throughout a year. ^ back to top
17. Sexual Concerns
This thirty-two year old professional woman had been told since she was an adolescent that she should be very careful not to be taken advantage of sexually by the opposite sex. It was emphasized that she would be considered dirty and cheap if she did have sex. Her subconscious accepted this instruction; and yet, after marriage when it was okay to finally have sexual relations, she found herself unable to respond sexually. She felt repulsed by sexual contact because it still was cheap and dirty in her mind. Through hypnosis, however, she revised this old mind set and reprogrammed a much more positive perspective regarding sex. Now she enjoys being an active sexual partner with her husband.
Sexual Abuse/Acid Reflux Disease
In a case of sexual abuse, a thirty year old woman had been molested as a child and was afraid to tell anyone. When she finally told her mother, her mother made light of it, ignoring the daughter’s terrible feelings of trauma, guilt, fear, and self-hatred. The result was the daughter felt she had no voice and as she grew into a woman, she had illness centering in her throat, trachea and stomach. It was as though she had to hold her words down or eat her words. It continued to feel like she did not have permission to speak up. This stress held in that part of the body most likely contributed to and manifested as acid reflux disease. Through hypnosis visualization, she neutralized the stress of the trauma and gave herself permission to speak up when she wanted to do so. She also released guilt, fear and feelings of being damaged (low self-esteem) while replacing the negative emotions with positive and healthy mind sets and belief systems that reinforced high self-esteem. Within a couple months, her acid reflux issue improved greatly. ^ back to top
18. Childbirth/Pain Management
This young couple in their twenties wanted to have their baby's birth experience without the fear of pain and without using drugs unless it was absolutely necessary. They were taught how to bypass the labor pain by use of hypnosis. Instead of pain, the woman substituted a slight pressure feeling which alerted her to the existence of a labor contraction. In addition, she could numb any area where the nurse would be inserting a needle. The wife could remain calm, relaxed and feeling good yet could respond to her husband, nurse and doctor whenever they spoke to her. Experiencing hypnosis relaxation and learning to perform her own hypnosis to obtain control over her pain in giving birth, gave her self-confidence and a relief from fears regarding childbirth. ^ back to top
19. Tic
This young twenty-nine year old woman had developed a nervous twitch or “tic” that jerked her neck and head uncontrollably in a quick sideway motion every few minutes. She had tried everything and hypnosis was her last hope. Through hypnosis she learned what her body was trying to express. She had been traumatized a couple months earlier when she learned that her beloved boyfriend had cheated on her. He abruptly had broken up with her. In deep emotion of hurt and anger, her immediate reaction was denial. The tic was a physiological representation, a form of figurative language of stress that the subconscious used to reflect her refusal to accept that her boyfriend had cheated and left her. She used hypnosis to express her forgiveness of what he had done and chose to release her anger, disappointment and inferiority feelings replacing them with all positive emotions. Furthermore, she decided it was best to move on with her life too. Within two weeks, she reported that the tic had stopped completely. ^ back to top
20. Early Menopause/Self-esteem
A professional entrepreneur in her forties came for HypnoCounseling and was working on self-esteem issues. When she corrected her erroneous belief system that said she was inferior because she was a woman, she experienced an unexpected positive side effect…she restarted her menstrual cycle that had unexpectedly stopped in her early thirties without any known reason. She reported that her gynecologist, who had been monitoring her medicines and treatment, had agreed that there were no other variables other than the hypnosis that could have re-engaged her menstrual cycle at that time. Her negative stressful thoughts about being a woman probably were related to why she experienced early menopause while her change to a more positive attitude about being a woman probably restarted her cycle. ^ back to top
21. Skin Disorders
A thirty-three year old female client came for HypnoCounseling to focus on a single issue only to learn that another issue that was subconsciously connected to the first could be cleared simultaneously. She had no prior knowledge of the connection between these two issues. This client came to Glassner suffering the grief over the loss of her sibling. Concurrent with this event she was also complaining of an eczema skin rash which had plagued her for many years and nothing was effective in healing it. She dealt with her grief issues during her hypnosis sessions and then reported two weeks later that her eczema rash had cleared completely.
[Note: the Journal of Dermatology published in 2000, a study that concluded that over 80% of all skin disorders may be helped through hypnosis/hypnotherapy. ARCH Dermatol/Vol. 136 :393-399.]
Skin Disorders
This sixty year old administrator came for HypnoCounseling because he suffered from agonizing itchy skin. He awoke each morning with blood on his sheets from scratching uncontrollably in his sleep. Through HypnoCounseling he followed his approved hypnosis suggestions that helped him release the toxic emotions that were causing him to itch and were figuratively and literally “itching to get out.” This client had immediate relief from his itching and accompanying pain during the session and continued to feel comfortable afterwards. Within 30 days the itching issue was permanently resolved. ^ back to top
22. Constipation/Grief
Having suffered from the loss of a young friend for whom he was still grieving, this forty year old advertising executive came seeking help for his anxiety and pain from grief. Besides the anxiety and grief, a chief complaint was constipation. During hypnosis he became aware that his subconscious was holding onto “everything” for fear of more “loss.” Therefore, every bowel movement represented more “loss” and his subconscious resisted that too. However, during hypnosis he elected to release his grief, claim peace of mind and change that mind set programming that would permit him to be regular again. A week later, he happily reported that he was no longer constipated and he could think of his departed friend without feeling the old, painful anxiety he had before coming for HypnoCounseling. ^ back to top
23. Weight Reduction
This forty-five year old real estate investor came for weight reduction issues because she was a size 24 and wanted to change her body shape to a size 16. Through hypnosis she discovered her eating behaviors were based upon an old subconscious mind set that had been established when she was extremely poor barely affording one meal a day. Her subconscious chose the survival mode that urged her to eat all she could now because she might not have any food later on. Even though this client had become financially comfortable she was still overeating subconsciously like in years ago when there was never enough food. Although now she desperately wanted to lose that weight, her outdated subconscious programming was counteracting her desires. Fortunately, through hypnosis, she deleted the invalid mind sets and instead established new ones that allowed her to eat moderately and healthfully. When she achieved her goal weight she proudly boasted this accomplishment by mailing in the tags from a pair of size 16 jeans with a note saying that she “did it!” ^ back to top
