What has been your most successful technique to help your client end a particularly troublesome craving?

Janice Manson

www.mindclickpartners.com

Hi Janice - Creating a group for "Hypnosis for Weight Management" is a great idea!  Remember to join our Group Creators Group here on the network so that you can get in on ideas to make your group better.

My two favorite ways to help clients with weight management are to teach them The Secret Language of Feelings, so that they don't eat because of emotions, and I 5-PATH them in order to neutralize the cause of the problem!

It's all about community!
Cal

Hi Janice,

Great topic to talk about!

I am a new certified hypnotist and I am still learning about weight management.

The only technique I have seen so far is EFT. This was used to help a lady with craving chocolate.

We gave her a piece of chocolate candy and had her work up her craving level to want to eat the piece of candy.

Her craving was up to a level 10 out of 1-10 scale. Then we did the EFT technique about three times. Each time her craving level went down till she did not crave it any more.

I would love to hear about other techniques that will help.

Thank You

Sidney King

www.feelbetterhypnosis.com

I know my favorite way of helping my clients fight their cravings is by giving them direct suggestions that when the craving first appears they go get a glass of water and this usually (not always) works....I also give them instruction in Self hypnosis so that they can help themselves fight the cravings between sessions.

William Lytle, C. Ht.

www.cnyhypnosis.org

I use EFT too :)

And what I would do is to add suggestions in rapport with emotions. Like when a person is sad and has cravings,  eats for example ice cream, that the person with the help of the unconscious mind can find better ways to do, i.e. go jogging to abreact, or read a book or wtach TV or whatever the unconscious mind fills in.

For stop smoking,  I heard a CD of either  Deepak Chopra (? or was it McKenna ?)  in visualizations. He states the example of an old telephone central where associations like emotions , like sadness, regrets, hate, shame, wellbeing,  or rituals like 1st cigarette of the day, during work break, in between meals are symbolized by cables, which are pulled from the operator board and the associations neutred. Than there is a white board or black board from which the reasons for smoking are erased from.

As I am currently writing on my own script, I think whether I build in some parts like replacing the craving with another habit, and work with visualizations to lower cravings and especially emotional eating. Maybe in context with emotions or rituals, like in between meal snacks. I have to see. I do alot of taylored interventions and adapt scripts to the personality of my clients.

In the past I have used "standard" direct suggestion with all the usual things like have a glass of cold water etc.  It seems to work well enough for clients who have simply developed a habit of overeating.  But what if that "habit" is masking a deep emotional wound?  The simplistic answer is that if you are doing a good job with your consultation (which is ongoing through the program) then you should form a working hypothesis of what the underlying issue is and then test that.  Deal with the emotional wound first then deal with the habit.

I have a client at the moment who is over eating and wants to stop.  During the consultation / counselling phases it became clear that she had a traumatic birthing experience 3 years ago that led to post-natal depression.  She was on anti-depressants for 2 years and had been off them for four weeks when she came to me.  She still gets anxious at the thought of having to look after her very demanding three year old son.  So we spent some time developing her ability to find her focus of calmness and get to know the physical feelings of that (Gestalt?).  Then we worked on allowing her to expand that feeling.  Using a SUDS scale we got her to raise her calmness from 4 to 9 and then called that state "Calmness #9".  This state was anchored using finger taps on the back of her hand which I got her to do in hypnosis.  Then using the NLP switch (or swish) technique We were able to achieve calmness #9 when she visualised looking after her son.  It took 6 switches to achieve this.  This feeling of calm associated with thoughts of looking after her son was also anchored.

This lady has an incredible ability to visualise in hypnosis.  For session 3 in the program I planned to use this to get her to alter her food-seeking drive.  Prior to hypnosis we had a discussion on the role of the Hypothalamus (HT) in food seeking behaviour.  I had found a really good diagram of the control loops used in that process and we had a good look at that which showed information paths in and out of the HT.

In hypnosis I then used her amazing visualisation skill to go on a virtual tour of her body and gradually worked upwards to the the HT "control room".  I asked her to describe it to me:

client: It is dark and full of cobwebs

me:  what do the cobwebs mean

client:  it has not been used for a long time

me:  what do you want to do about that

client:  clean it up

me:  OK, get the control room staff to help you, clean it up and clean out the pipes too

2 minutes pass

me: what does the room look like now

Client: clean

me:  what do the pipes look like

client: clear

me:  what else do you want to do with the room

client:  make it a calm place to be

me:  how will you do that

client: decorate it

me:  what do you want to put in there

client:  lavender and sounds of the ocean

me:  go ahead and decorate

2 minutes pass

me:  what does the room feel like now

client:  calm

So far the program is working for her.  She reports having lost 10 pounds since we started (a small loss in the overall scheme of things but a significant emotional success for her).  She has also developed her own strategy when eating.  Previously she would always leave her favourite bits until last.  Now she eats them first "so that when I leave some food on my plate I don't feel as if I am being cheated".  Well done to her - she is really engaging in the process and developing her own strategies rather than simply listening to someone telling a story and hoping that the weight will just go away on it's own.  One more session to go with this client.

for this program I give suplementary CDs (which are just standard direct suggestion).  A 3 CD series issued at sessions 2, 3 & 4.  Also after stage 4 I give clients a book called "On Eating" by Susie Orbach as a way of helping clients by having a simple book they can dip into when needed to get some positive thoughts on good eating habits.  Check out the book at my Amazon Associate Book Store

Some excellent ideas are presented here. FIVE PATH is best wasy I have found in discovering and clearing out the root emotional causes and/or traumas.I haven'gt used the Secret Language of Feelings yet but can see that it would be an invaluable addition. A couple of simple NLP techniques can often be of help, too. Recently in one of my classes a woman told of an ice cream craving, feeling compelled to eat the entire carton when she meant to have a small serving. The COMPULSION BLOWOUT, developed by Richard Bandler appeared to be a neat approach since this matter came up in the middle of a class and little time available to go into great detail or to  take too much time away from the class. This approach involves the initial perception of the item craved, usual triggered by an image. In her imaging she perceived the ice cream appeared lafrger than actual size and a magnetic attractio as though the item actually tended to move toward her. She was asked to think of another dessert item that she enjoys and yet the compelling desire is not present. She could see a slice of her favorite pie, "just a pie" and she could enjoy a thing slice and desire no more.

Upon hearing shis, I asked her to immediately see the ice cream serving increasing in size, doubling, tripling quadrupling, etc as it came closer and closer. Initially she found this enjoyable, even when surrounded and covered with ice cream and "eating my way out". While the other class members observed with amusement and laughter, I insisted she continue the expanding process and really enjoy "all the ice cream you can possibly eat." Soon she was asking the process be stopped as she was feeling nauseous, "No, you need to have more, to be really satisfied, so consume all you can

possibly hold." Later when asked to pcture a bowl of ice cream and a slice of pie, she said that while they both looked good, there was no desire for either at the time. This is a simple NLP technique that is easily taught in a demonstrtation class. While there is no guarantee of 100% success, I have had people tell me years later that while they still enjoy chocolate, there has been a freedom from a need to indulge.

The other NLP technique, Six Step Reframe, can easybly be done while the client is in somnambulistic trance, getting ideo motor responses via a nod or finger left. The technique is prersented on The NLP page.

Clint