International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

HYPNOTHERAPY IN OBESITY 229
Exploring Ambivalence Toward Change
The combination of behavioral and hypnotherapeutic techniques may lead to
merely a temporarily favorable result in some patients, and to none at all in
others. An important number of patients will become anxious and/or depressed
when they start to lose weight. The therapist may notice that the patient does not
continue to carry out the agreements, and may give the impression of unconsciously
undermining any progress. In that situation, different kinds of hypnoanalytic
techniques can be employed see Edelstein, 1982), in order to explore
possible unconscious obstacles and resistances to further weight loss, such as
ideomotor questioning with the seven questions of Le Cron Cheek & Le Cron,
1968). In women with a strong resistance toward changeÐusually those who are
chronically or massively obeseÐwe often discover that the patient's obesity
conceals traumatic events and/or unsolved con¯icts of a highly emotional nature.
These traumatic events might be incest, rape, physical abuse, extreme emotional
neglect and lack of affection, or involvement in chronic marital discord Vanderlinden,
1993). Besides the technique of ideomotor questioning, we often use egostate
therapy Watkins & Watkins, 1982) to communicate with that part of the
patient that is afraid to lose weight, that induces the overeating, or that is
sabotaging the treatment.
Example
Laura, a 38-year-old married woman with a severe obesity problem 250 pounds),
responds enthusiastically to the suggested self-control procedures and she practices
her self-hypnosis several times a day. As soon as she starts to lose weight, as she
regains more control over her eating pattern, Laura becomes more and more
depressed and no longer follows the agreements that had been made. She says that
`one part inside doesn't want to cooperate anymore'. We then propose to her to
explore the ambivalent attitude by means of ideomotor questioning with ®nger
signaling and ego-state therapy).
Therapist: While you are enjoying your trance state, you can become more in touch
with that `part' in you that makes you feel depressed and forces you to overeat, when
you are alone.
Further exploration during hypnosis revealed that one part called `sadness,
helplesness and anger' came in Laura's life at the age of 4) when she felt
emotionally rejected by her parents and when she saw her father beating her
mother. During hypnosis she discovers how eating helped her to freeze all these
negative feelings and to distance herself from the escalating ®ghts between her
parents. She further discovers how overeating became her way of dealing with
feelings of loneliness and being rejected, that she experiences every evening
when she comes home after work. Thereafter, the working through of these