HORSEBACK RIDING AND FEAR CONDITIONING
This is one of those cases with unwanted emotional and physical responses that had no clear cause or origin . I call this the illogical connection of trauma .
I was helping a man who had developed a mortal fear of horse jumping competitions . He did well on trainings but every competition he became extremely uncomfortable , with physical symptoms of cold sweat and anxiety , which transferred to the horse and they both performed under their standards . He decided to try hypnosis , which basically is a dreamlike focused state of mind where we can use our fantasy to imagine situations and resolve them . When the man was in trance I guided him through a training and a competition in parallel , comparing them to find out what the difference was . “ Imagine you and your horse training , what do you notice ?”
“ Its all good , I feel secure , I know what am I doing , we are performing well ” “ Great , now imagine riding out , and then back in and it ’ s a competition ” “ I feel nervous now ” he said , and the body symptoms of sweat showed up , very real , even though he was sitting in a chair in my office , just imagining it – this is how powerful our mind is – it can make us react as if something is real by bringing out the memory of the situation .
“ Now zoom out of both situations , and imagine seeing them next to each other , as if you are watching two screens , can you do this ?” “ Yes ” “ What is the difference ?” “ All the people , and the flowers decorating the arena at the competitions ” “ Ok , now imagine all those people disappearing suddenly , as in a dream ” “ I ’ m still nervous ” he said , and from the way he was reacting physically , he clearly was . “ Now imagine all the flowers disappearing ” “ Ah , then it ’ s fine , its just like a training ” “ Now put all the people back ” “ That ’ s fine too ” “ Now put the flowers back ” “ That makes me very nervous ” We had found the stimuli that was triggering the mortal fear . It was not , as the client had thought , a fear of losing the competition , it was a mortal fear of flowers . I guessed that there must be a traumatic event that is connected to flower decorations , that the client is completely unaware of . “ Have you always felt this way ?” “ No , only the last two years ” “ And nothing of great emotional impact has taken place prior to these two years ?” “ Nothing I can think of ” he said .
“ How old are you ?” I said to get him connected to his timeline . “ Turning 45 ” he said , with a slight physical indication that it could have some meaning “ Ok , so how old is your dad today ?” I asked taking a wild shot , looking at the person he probably compares himself to genetically “ He died when I was a kid ” “ I ’ m sorry ,