Research Says that Hypnosis is the Difference that Makes The Difference in Truly Letting Go of Anorexia & Bulimia – Volume 326, September 10, 2015
Thanks to a few very brave young women who came in to see me over a decade ago, I learned from them, how to help them clear their anorexia and bulimia with hypnotic techniques. All of them asked me to write a book about how I managed to do this for them and so I did. It is called Do I Have An Eating Disorder? Now What? You can find it in the Kindle store on amazon.com.
While many of the conventional programs out there are working on the “presenting problem” level of the eating disorder, meaning the need to change the eating habits and perhaps the over exercise, binging, purging, calorie counting, cutting and any other obsessive compulsive behaviors that go with it. Hypnotists on the other hand are most interested in going to the root cause of the eating disorder itself while treating the obsessive compulsive aspects of the illness.
My clients have taught me that their biggest issues are of self-loathing and an inability to relate to people in an age appropriate way. All of them have had various traumas to overcome. All of them had to learn how to keep good boundaries for themselves while not over running other peoples’s boundaries with their impossible ideas of perfectionism and “people pleasing” behaviors.
There is a cause for the clients to have developed these eating disorders. Though they do indeed run in families, I have yet to have had an eating disordered client who hasn’t suffered some sort of trauma and in many causes multiple traumas. There are multiple levels of work that need to be done because the client is “self-loathing” (their words) and has very little idea in how to relate to both themselves and therefore others their own age. Most often these clients are afraid of the responsibilities represented by growing up which creates other issues for them. The cool thing though, is that there is now research that proves why hypnosis is the way to go and that is what I would like to share with you now.
While in hypnosis one is a dissociative state. When clients are engrossed in the thoughts and behaviors of their eating disorders, they are also in a dissociative state. This is true if they are: binging, purging, cutting themselves or over exercising. Since they are in this state of dissociation, we are using their ease of going into that state to help them heal themselves.
In 2014 there was an article written in the Journal of Clinical Experimental Hypnosis where there was a study done on a 20 year old female diagnosed with anorexia. In the eight sessions that she had, she was given suggestions to strengthen her ego and her overall body image. Regressive work was done to find the root cause of her problem. Three months later there was a vast improvement in both her self-image of her body and gaining healthier eating habits. The article sites a few more cases where the teens were hospitalized because of their very low body weight. In 12 hypnosis sessions they were able to shift to having much better body perceptions while gaining healthier eating habits.
Though these particular case histories didn’t go into the deeper work of interpersonal relationships, these case histories do show us that it is easier for these clients to release their eating disorders with the use of hypnosis then working in the conscious state used in traditional talk therapy.
Given the very serious nature of these illnesses it is very important to follow these clients for a longer period to make sure they have really done the work to clear these self-destructive behaviors. When I work with any of these clients they sign on to work with me for up to a year to make sure they have beat their problem, while living their lives based on a “compelling future” of their design, which they find more enticing then staying ill. In this way they are most likely to regain their health while creating lives of fulfillment and joy.
