From: murphyg@Software.Mitel.COM (Gary Murphy)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology,alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: NLP phobia treatments
Date: 15 Sep 92 03:04:10 GMT
	<MURPHYG.92Sep10221046@peplinsk.Software.Mitel.COM>
	<1992Sep11.231318.9647@wam.umd.edu>
Followup-To: sci.psychology
Organization: Applications Software II, MITEL Corporation, Kanata, Ontario,
	Canada
In-reply-to: sfjr@wam.umd.edu's message of 11 Sep 92 23:13:18 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.231318.9647@wam.umd.edu> 
sfjr@wam.umd.edu (Sherri) writes:

   Hey, we alt.sexual.abuse.recovery readers want the methods, not just
   the knowledge that they exist :)

   Seriously, Lee Lady once mentioned using methods for dealing with
   traumatic memories.  Could you crosspost that to asar?

Sherri,

I will append an old posting from Lee to this message (I hope he doesn't
mind!) --- this will give you the flavour of the treatment, but please
do not take it too literally: the posting describes a visual treatment,
but it needn't be the only approach.  What is important is the
'dissociation' the exercise produces; one critic commented "so NLP
discovers desensitization" but fails to notice this method often works
in minutes, rather than months.

As I cautioned in a previous posting, future pacing, having the subject
imagine a fresh occurance of the trigger, is an important check.

Here 'tis ...

From uhccux!uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu!lady Sat Nov 23 14:20:40 HST 1991
Subject: The NLP Fast Phobias/Trauma Cure( was Re: Agoraphobia ...)
Date: 24 Nov 91 00:16:47 GMT

The NLP Fast Phobia/Trauma cure is a simple visualization that takes
five or ten minutes.  It is designed to cure simple phobias and to
neutralize memories of traumatic experiences such as rape, abuse,
combat experiences, etc.  Every therapist I've ever known who has ever
tried it has found it very useful.  In my experience, though, it is
extremely difficult to get therapists to actually try it.

It is described in the books USING YOUR BRAIN FOR A CHANGE by Richard
Bandler and HEART OF THE MIND by Steven and Connirae Andreas.
Unforunately, since the technique is so simple I think people tend to
think the brief descriptions in these books are incomplete.  One can
actually watch the technique being used in a videotape published by NLP
Comprehensive, Boulder, CO.

There are two steps to the cure.  The first step is for the subject to
imagine (visualize) watching a movie of herself confronting the object
of her phobia or going through the experience she has a traumatic
memory of.  Two things are critical for this step:  1) That the subject
*watches herself* in the movie.  In other words, if  X has a phobia of
birds the movie is not just a movie about birds, but is a movie of X
encountering birds in a way that would be frightening to her.   2)  It
is crucial that the subject be able to watch the movie and be detached,
and in particular to stay out of the movie and remain a spectator
watching herself go through the experience.  You can check this
afterwards by asking her "So how was it when you watched that movie?"
If she answers "I felt a little afraid," then ask "Did you remember to
stay back in your seat in the movie theatre, or did you actually become
involved in the movie itself?"

Understandably, it's very difficult for the someone to imagine watching
a movie of herself encountering a situation she's afraid of or has a
traumatic memory of and to remain unemotional.  But there are several
tricks which are usually effective in this respect.  Typically the
therapist will say something like this: "I want you to imagine that
you're sitting in a movie theatre.  Take a moment to look around the
theatre, notice the decor and what the seats are like and look back for
a moment to where the projection booth is.  Now on the screen you will
see a black and while still photo of yourself -- a snapshot -- showing
you before you have the experience the movie is going to show.  In a
moment the screen is going to show a movie about you.  This movie will
be in black and white with no sound.  Sort of a poor quality home movie.
It may flicker a bit.  But before the movie starts, I want you to float
up out of your body into the projection booth, where you can control the
movie.  And as you're up there in the projection booth, with those
enormous reels of film on the projector and that long beam of white
light streaming towards the screen, I want you to notice [Subject's
Name] sitting there in her seat waiting for the movie to start.  And now
I want you to start the projector and to watch [Subject's Name] as she
watches the movie of you going through experience X."

Well, that's a bit overly elaborate but it contains the essential
ingredients that usually work.  If the subject still can't remain
detached, be flexible until you find something that works.  Have her
imagine driving on the highway and seeing the movie on the screen of a
drive-in in the distance.  Have the movie shown on a sheet that
flickers in the wind.  One client told me "I sat sidewise in my seat
and watched it out of the corner of my eye."  Whatever works.

STEP TWO:  Have the client step into the movie *at the end* when the
experience is over and she's safe:  All the birds are gone, or the
rapist has left and she's been to the hospital and been taken care of
or whatever.  Now, with the traumatic part over, she sees things
through her own eyes just as if she were actually there.  Things are in
color and three dimensional.  And then have her very very fast rewind
the whole experience to the very beginning, like a movie rewinding or a
VCR backspacing, with all the people walking backwards and everything
in reverse.  And then have her rewind it again even faster.  And when
she can rewind the whole experience in about one second, have her
repeat that five or ten times.

One last step: You say to the client "Now I want you imagine yourself
walking through a shopping mall/finding a bee in your house/being on the
twelve floor of a building and looking out the window [or whatever].
What's that like for you now?"  (Or "Now I want you to just think back
to that time in Nam when you saw your buddy get his head blown off.
What's it like now when you remember that?")  Asking a question like
this is an example of what NLP people call "future pacing."  Asking the
question is an important part of the intervention.  What the client
answers is not especially important.  (Unless she says "It's still as
bad as ever" in which case the therapist can feel like a failure and
decide that NLP doesn't work.  :-)

One drawback to the technique is that it has little dramatic impact.
Clients seldom say "Oh wow!  This is incredible!  I can't believe I'm
cured after having this awful phobia all these years!"  Instead, the
therapist gets his praise in throw-away lines: "Oh no, I don't have
*that* problem anymore."  Or "I don't even think about it anymore.
After all, the very worst that could happen to you in an elevator is
that you'd get stuck for a little while, and that's only inconvenient."
Or "I can't believe that I was ever worried about something so silly."


Lee Lady                                               
Dept of Mathematics                      lady@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu   
University of Hawaii                     lady@uhunix.bitnet
Honolulu, HI  96822                     


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That's the file!  If you've stuck with us this far, I'd like to pop in
another blatent ad for my teacher's article in the fall issue of the
Theosophical Society's "The Quest" magazine.



--
Gary Lawrence Murphy - Gary.Murphy@software.mitel.COM - (613) 592-2122 x3709
"Fear is not an unknown emotion to us." --- Neil Armstrong, Moonwalker
Newsgroups: sci.psychology