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A lady attended a consultation and asked if I could help her with her compulsive craving for chocolate, she had been addicted to chocolate for the past ten years. The lady was only slightly overweight so this didn’t concern her, the only concern she had was her craving. She told me that there had been many visits to her doctor about this addiction who couldn’t seem to help, although appointments were set up for her to see other specialists but to no avail.
You are my last hope she confessed, I’ve explored every other avenue and gained nothing, do you think you can help me? She then went on to say “I’m not expecting it to work, but I am prepared to try.”
Although the lady was skeptical of hypnotherapy, this gave me no cause for concern as belief in hypnotherapy is not essential. It works anyway. I explained to her that all she had to do was to keep an open mind and that I would guide her through her therapy.
Before we went ahead with therapy I needed to gain an insight into the ladies backround. For example, the lady had told me that she had suffered this craving for the past ten years, so I needed to investigate events that would have happened between ten and twelve years earlier, events of an emotional nature. I also wanted to gain an insight into her childhood as this can often have a bearing on so many neurotic symptoms.
The lady then told me that she’d had a very happy childhood, being an only child; of a wonderful mother and father. Her father was an officer in the merchant navy. Unfortunately he was away from home for many months at a time, she didn’t see him as often as she would like to. She loved her father dearly and missed him each time he went away, but this was a way of life, it had always been that way.
My mother was a school teacher, and taught at the same school I had attended, this could cause some embarrassment on occasions with some of my friends, but overall there were more positives than negatives, being able to walk to and from school with my mother was something we both enjoyed a memory I cherish, I had a wonderful childhood probably better than most.
One traumatic experience the lady did speak about was the death of her father, that was ten years earlier, the lady had nursed her father for some months but he had become so ill that he had to be admitted to hospital, while in hospital she would visit her father daily, to be by his side, then while being by her father’s side some weeks later he suffered a massive heart attack and died, nothing could be done to resuscitate him although all efforts were made.
The death of her father was a very emotional memory.
Having gained a good insight into her life, I explained that I was happy to go ahead with hypnotherapy to find the cause of this obsession. After explaining my theory of the cause of this obsessive craving for chocolate, I thought it was a comfort to a past emotional memory, and that in hypnosis the subconscious mind will eventually return the causal memory and release the emotion that caused the symptom.
With the lady feeling more confident after my explanation on how hypnotherapy works she was ready to go ahead with her first session, we began the therapy session with me inducing hypnosis relaxing the lady into a light trance state,
I began the session by asking the subconscious mind to return memories to the conscious mind, memories of events from some time in the past that are emotional in nature.
The first memory that was recalled was being with her father at his bedside the day he passed away, saying how peaceful he looked after his passing; this memory caused some emotion but no abreactions. (Emotional release)
She then went on to recall other memories from childhood; its like having a walk down memory lane she said, memories of family holidays and other happy times with her mother and father, and generally reflecting on those very happy family memories.
I then encouraged the subconscious to keep getting closer and closer to the causal memory the memory that caused the emotion, the emotion that created the symptom of eating chocolate as a comfort.
I continued as follows
Subconscious, in a moment I shall count to three then click my fingers, would you then return that memory back to the conscious mind, the memory that caused the emotion of comfort eating, it’s been ten years since this craving for chocolate began, subconscious when you return the memory and release the emotion you can be relieved from this obsessive behaviour. So let’s go back in time to when you were, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five or four what happened subconscious focus in now as I count. One - Two - Three - Click.
The lady then recalled when she was seven years old, being at home with her mother and being very excited. Her father had been away for some months and is due home today and that she and her mother were going to the harbour to welcome her father home. This was a day of great excitement and emotion. Her father’s ship was docking that very afternoon.
Waiting on the quayside for my father was a very exciting time; knowing that he would be coming home made me even more excited. Then he appeared with his big suitcase, both mother and I burst into tears at the site of the man we both dearly loved, and as he always did on these occasions my father would give me the biggest bar of chocolate that you’ve ever seen,
As these memories began unfolding the emotions were being released through four abreactions from the right eye, we had found the cause and now the catharsis had begun.
The following week the lady attended for her second session and informed me that she hadn’t eaten chocolate since her first session the craving was no longer there, she remarked, it seems too good to be true, we continued as planned with our second session to make sure all repressed memories had been returned and all emotions released, during the second session there was very little in the way of memory recalls, and we concluded the session without abreactions.
The lady then thanked me for the therapy and remarked, I have suffered ten years of this craving, consulting doctors and other specialists, but in here after a one hour session of hypnotherapy the symptom has been relieved.
ANALYSIS
When the lady was seven years of age, that day on the quayside when waiting for and then seeing her father for the first time in months the event was so exciting and emotional with tears of joy her subconscious mind reacted by repressing the memory of the event as it become so overwhelming for the young child, although it was a memory of great happiness never the less it appeared as an overwhelming nature to the subconscious mind.
When her father passed away many years later the event was of a very emotional nature, so emotional it was overwhelming. The subconscious mind compared these two separate overwhelming emotional incidents that were very similar in nature. The subconscious then released the repressed memory that had lain dormant for so many years. It was those repressed memories that become reactive that went on to cause the obsessive craving for chocolate. The memory of course was of an overwhelming and emotional event.
On this occasion when the subconscious released the repressed memory it went on to cause the symptom immediately. Eating chocolate had become a comfort to the subconscious mind with comforting memories of her father.
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Case Studies 
