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Psoriasis and Acrophobia
NOTE
With this case history and all other case histories that are published the therapy that is conducted is Analytical therapy that is to say finding the cause of the symptom that the client suffers.
TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE
Acrophobia
(The fear of heights)
Psoriasis
(Skin disease)
The case history that is about to unfold is of special interest because of the lady involved. Meg’s Osler was the owner of the therapy centre, the Osler therapy rooms Abergavenny South Wales where I practiced for some years. On this occasion the name is not fictitious at the request of Megs.
Megs attended therapy sessions to hopefully gain relief from the skin disease Psoriasis, this is a symptom caused by a nervous disorder. During the eight sessions of analytical hypnotherapy that followed, the memories that were to be returned from the subconscious mind to the conscious mind was a great experience, and gave me a greater understanding of the workings of the subconscious mind.
Megs was about twenty years of age when the symptoms of psoriasis appeared, the symptom became an embarrassment to Megs as the psoriasis was on her scalp causing discomfort in several ways, for example. Itching, the feeling of loose skin, feeling unclean, the loose skin even going into Megs ears and eyes, Meg’s had suffered with psoriasis for the past fifteen years.
As a child Megs lived at home with her three elder sisters, two brothers Robert and John, and her Mother and Father. Robert was Meg’s twin brother and between them there was a very special relationship (as there normally is with twins). Then there was John (the bully) who was the older brother by some ten years.
During the analytical therapy that was to follow I wanted to investigate Meg’s life of when she was eighteen years of age, in the knowledge that symptom had begun when she was twenty years old.
(The symptom from an active repressed memory can take anything from one day and up too two years to appear).
During hypnosis Meg’s recalled memories of leaving home at eighteen years of age to go and live with her eldest sister Joan, Meg’s was very close to Joan and going to live with Joan would now give her a greater independence, not being under the watchful eye of her parents, the new adventures that can now be explored. To Meg’s this seemed slightly dangerous, exciting and intriguing, Meg’s was now looking forward to her new life of adventure and independence.
Meg’s also recalled an event in her life when at the age of twenty one she experienced having a panic attack; Meg’s didn’t know what had caused the panic attack but did recall feeling very nervous.
At this point I immediately asked the subconscious mind to compare those feelings of nervousness that had just been recalled to another time in Meg’s life, to return to some past event when Meg’s had experienced similar feelings.
Meg’s then recalled memories of her older brother John who used to make her nervous because of his bullying ways; John was always bullying her twin brother Robert when they were young. The sight of her brother John always triggered alarm bells in her mind that danger was imminent.
When Meg’s attended for her next session one week later she reported having unusual dreams, (this of course is very normal with the subconscious mind now focusing in on the causal memories of the symptom). Meg’s couldn’t recall the entire dream but it did include fear anxiety and danger.
Then during the session in hypnosis Meg’s recalled seeing herself aged between three to four years old and being with her twin brother Robert playing upstairs, they were playing on the landing when all of a sudden their elder brother John seemed to appear.
Meg’s now feared for Robert’s safety, what was John doing here? He seemed to appear from nowhere. Then John picked Robert up by the legs and dangled him over the banister from the top of the stairs. Meg’s was now hysterical and nervous at seeing the dangers now unfolding before her very eyes, now fearing for the safety of her twin brother Robert. Would he be left to fall from this great height, Meg’s was looking down screaming and appealing to John not to leave Robert fall.
John kept taunting both Meg’s and Robert that he was going to leave Robert fall, both children now screaming franticly, Robert laughing and taunting them all of the time. Eventually John pulled Robert up and put him back on the landing, both Meg’s and Robert sat on the floor crying and hugging each other and hating her brother John for the horrible way he had treated Robert.
This event being of great drama, trauma, anger, frustration and emotion was then repressed by the subconscious mind.
So the repressed memories of event that took place on that day when Meg’s was aged between three and four are the memories that were to go on to cause the symptoms of Psoriasis and Acrophobia. The subconscious minds repressed memories had lain dormant for about fourteen years, until Megs was eighteen years of age.
So why did Meg’s begin to suffer the symptoms of anxiety, fear, experiencing nervous anticipation? all classic repressed emotional feelings that go on to cause many symptoms, on this occasion bodily (Psoriasis) Visual and Physical (Acrophobia) when she was twenty years of age?
Well you will recall that when Meg’s was eighteen she became very excited about leaving home to go and live with her sister, this great excitement mixed with the nervousness of the move stirred the memories in the subconscious that had been repressed. The repressed memories then became active recalling the events of childhood, it was these repressed memories that went on to cause both symptoms.
Acrophobia for example, when Meg’s was looking down from the upstairs landing with Robert being dangled by his legs, the terrible fear was the height that Robert would fall, so the fear of height is repressed and of course the symptom of acrophobia will prevent you from doing many things that includes height as height has now been labeled as dangerous, this repressed memory acts as an alarm bell in order to gain protection from the subconscious,
Psoriasis being of a nervous disorder also attacked the scalp, the question is why? Look upon this as a subconscious mind comfort, when Meg’s was experiencing this traumatic event, try to imagine the reaction of a four year old child, pulling at her hair for example, dragging her nails on her scalp in the fear she was experiencing, the subconscious would look upon this reaction as a comfort to Meg’s during the trauma. By causing the psoriasis Meg’s would then continually scratch her head this of course now being a comfort to the repressed memory.
Conclusion to this case history is that during the therapy sessions when these repressed memories were being recalled, Meg’s experienced many abreactions from both eyes and on this occasion equal amounts from both eyes, all the emotional memories were abreacted from the right eye this being the most common reaction, but because of all the anger and frustration that had been repressed there were many abreactions from the left eye too.
Meg’s now lives a symptom free life in a beautiful part of South Wales called Llangorse 3 miles outside Brecon.
© Dennis McCarthy 05
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Case Studies 
