Tag: working alliance

  • Oliver’s Eyes – Logosynthesis with Metaphors

    Oliver is an older gentleman with extensive experience in Logosynthesis. For the last six months he has suffered from a blind spot in his right eye, in the centre of the retina, the fovea. The ophthalmologist has told him that he cannot see there because of a blood clot sitting behind the fovea. His peripheral view is o.k. The clot can easily be seen as a black spot of 2-3 cm on a large x-ray of the eye, and there is a 40% chance that his left eye could also be affected. Oliver was afraid, as you can imagine.

    I decided to introduce Oliver to the Logosynthesis Simonton protocol, and invited him to think of something this blood clot was like. He immediately associated it with a stain of tomato sauce on a clean white shirt. Since Oliver is always impeccably dressed, this stain generated a 7 on a SUD scale.

    I now gave him the Logosynthesis sentences for ‘this tomato stain on my shirt’. After processing the stain this way, it disappeared from his white shirt and the level of distress triggered by the metaphor went to zero.

    From here I addressed the x-ray photograph of the eye Oliver had seen in the ophthalmologist’s consulting room, which can also be considered a metaphor. I had him say the sentences for the black spot in the centre, and as a result the spot turned pink. After a second cycle this pink form became a thin line, just a contour of the original black spot. A third cycle of the sentences made the thin line disappear completely.

    When I asked him to explore the state of his right eye again, he told me that he could now see a more or less transparent contour of me, whereas before there had just been a black spot. I let him drink water and take a 30 min break in which he took a walk outside to let the process continue. After his return we explored his field of view again. Now it had widened from the left towards the centre. Before, Oliver could only see the book shelves in my consulting room, on the right in his peripheral vision, and he had not even been able to see the flipchart beside my chair. Now he was able to see it.

    Of course there are many details in this protocol that can only be taught in training, but this may give you an idea how to treat issues that may seem purely ‘physical’. It’s important to think in energy concepts from the beginning, and a blood clot is just one more manifestation of frozen energy.

  • Oliver’s Tests at School

    Oliver is 15. Growing fast, he is a bright high school student, with clear friendly eyes and an interested gaze, the young intellectual type.

    He comes in with his mother, who describes an interesting but disturbing symptom: when Oliver has a test in school forgets everything he has learned as soon as he sees the test paper with the questions.

    I remember that in our first session three years ago Oliver was a good ally in the process, so I engage him in a conversation as if he were a psychologist colleague, while drawing a diagram on the flipchart in my consulting room. What’s the matter in this mysterious case? We have a bright young guy as a client, who suddenly is unable to perform.

    What happens in the process? He studies for the test, knows everything covered, he receives the test questions, looks over the sheet to get an overview of the exam, and when he begins to answer, he has forgotten everything he learned. Mysterious, indeed. Oliver’s reaction when he realises that he can’t pass the test is ‘sh*t’.

    I draw a formula on the flipchart, with a sheet of paper on the left, an F for forgetting in the middle, and ‘sh*t’ on the right. In our psychological conversation we try to find out if there is any additional information, but we can’t find anything, so I draw a black box between the sheet of paper and the F for forgetting. I tell Oliver that in my opinion the ‘sh*t’ is not relevant: Once he stops forgetting, there will not longer be a reason to be irritated.

    So we concentrate on the black box. Oliver is fascinated by the way I take this problem apart and tries to help me where he can. I come up with the idea that there must be a stress reaction. Something happens, which causes his brain to switch to a state of ’empty’. I’m really puzzled and look at my colleague helplessly: What, for heaven’s sake, is in that black box?

    Psychologist Oliver finally comes up with the answer himself: “I put myself under pressure.” I notice that that’s a very interesting statement, because it means that he has two parts: one part is called ‘I’. It exerts pressure on the other part that’s called ‘myself’. Oliver is confused by the idea of being split in two parts, so I explain the topdog-underdog mechanism in the black box.

    The I-part of Oliver gives a strong message to the myself-part that he is not allowed to fail the test. The myself-part reacts to this message with a stress reaction, which turns off the part of his brain that can access what he has studied and instead goes into a state of alarm, in which he freezes. Now Oliver gets it: the I-part gives the orders, the myself-part must comply, but the myself-part is scared of the I-part and panics.

    I ask Oliver where the two parts are in the room, and he discovers that they share the same space in the middle of his head. I conclude that it’s too confusing to keep them in the same spot, so I invite him to find a place for the I-part and the myself-part on my carpet, and then a third spot for the Oliver that doesn’t have the problem. These spots are marked with coloured paper anchors.

    Once the map is laid out, I ask Oliver where the most energy is bound from his position of Oliver who doesn’t have the problem. It’s the I-part anchor that he feels pushed by. Now I give him the three Logosynthesis sentences for that I-part. They take a long time to process, especially the second one, which is not surprising. When I ask him what happened to the I-part, he says, amazed: “Both parts have become much weaker.”

    Oliver is pleasantly surprised. His back has straightened, his eyes shine even more brightly, and when we go through the formula on the flip chart again, the I-part is taken out of the equation. That means that the myself-part also disappears and that we can leave the answers to the test questions to this healthy, intelligent 15-years old. 

    Two weeks later:  

    Good afternoon, Dr. Lammers,

    We were with you two weeks ago. On Friday I had my mathematics exam and the result was a B+. I almost wrote an A-flat! The sentences have helped me to get my nervousness completely under control and since then I am getting good grades again. Thank you for your help!
    Greetings and many thanks again,

    Oliver 

  • Relief for childhood sexual abuse with Logosynthesis

  • Brenda’s Decision

  • Resolving the Pain of Early Abuse

  • The Pain behind the Big Picture

This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site. Switch to a production site key to remove this banner.