A woman of 60 presented to me with anorexia. She had suffered this debilitating condition since age 12 and had quite rightly consulted various GPs and other medical professionals but to no avail.
After four sessions, in which we agreed to use hypnotherapy to neutralise the impact that a single bullying episode by a child of similar age, and some other deeply felt criticisms about her chubbiness, she is now eating three times every day, no longer weighs herself and her self-esteem has improved enormously. Her treatment is ongoing.
As children, people have always found ways of coping with insults, destructive criticism and various “put-downs”. Sadly, the negative impact from these psychological traumas frequently remains in the unconscious mind, prompting the victim to find ways of making their presence count, hoping to get some sympathetic approval, or at least be noticed and to matter. It also serves as a constant reminder to avoid being in the situation where they would be vulnerable to the similar traumatic activity and re-suffer the psychological pain.
In the case of this client, she unconsciously decided never to be overweight again (or even a little bit ”chubby”). This unconscious determination led to her moving too far in the opposite direction and becoming dangerously underweight.