planning to zone out from the start. Now here’s the thing: my
client enjoys two beers. After these my client feels perfectly
relaxed. There is no need for any more. Yet, my client will
continue from the second beer up to the eight or ninth, and be
incapable of working the day after.
My client is convinced this is due to lack of character (because
everybody tells them so), inherited predisposition from their
DNA (father drank excessively) and low self esteem (client
feels like shit after drinking). I propose that all of this may be
right, but not the pivotal cause. That there is a much more
direct cause of drinking that has to do with something else.
My client doubts me but is curious.
I invite my client to go into a trance. Usually by allowing their
eyes to shift from focused to peripheral day dreaming gaze.
Relaxing the body on the out breath, trying to become heavier
than gravity. Smiling a smile they think they will enjoy smiling
if the session goes well (future pacing). Then close their eyes.
Going into trance does not have to happen through gradual
relaxation, it can be a momentary switch, triggered by
surprise, curiosity, cognitive trance-derivational search for an
answer to a proposed issue, fear, boredom… regardless, it can
happen so fast. And it usually does.
We travel back in time to random memories from the
childhood and early past. We explore feelings that show up,
and in this work we stumble upon a memory where the clients
older brother had approached his girlfriend at the time
inappropriately. Very much so. And how he was taken of
guard, surprised and unable to respond. Afraid and confused.
Unable to say, NO! Shame. Mixed feelings.
Every cue that come from the changes in my clients
disposition point in the direction that this memory of not being
able to say no is an important one. I bring it forward to the
point where I say “and there you are, in the future, many years
later, and you are still searching for the power to say no! The
possibility to stand up for yourself and your girlfriend once
and for all, to do what is right… to say no! And you have been
creating this opportunity over and over again, buying a