Recently I had the pleasure of treating a gentleman in Barcelona who had a very severe repulsion towards fish. Any time he had been made to eat it, either with or without his knowledge, the sensation he experienced was a feeling of “death” (his word). He was in his sixties and this had gone on his whole life.
A case like this is always very exciting for the analytical hypnotherapist that I am. First, it is very exciting to put on your “hypnotic” Sherlock Holmes hat and embark on an investigation to trace the root of the problem. You know you’ll find something “juicy” (or rather “fishy” in that case) but you have no idea of what the road will look like along the way.
Second, you know the results will be dramatic once the work is completed. And there’s no better reward when you work in hypnotherapy than an amazed and grateful look in your client’s eyes.
Here’s what he had to say about his course of hypnotherapy when we were finished with the treatment, which by the way took only 2 sessions.
“Hello David,
I would first like to thank you for what you have done for me. I doubt that you can fully realise how much it means to me. I will now write a small bit about what has happened:
I have had a phobia about eating fish from since I was about five years old until a week ago. That is sixty years of not being able to put fish on my plate without feeling a terrible revulsion. I would not touch food that had touched fish in any way. It really did make me feel sick.
People have tried hiding fish which they would call “not very fishy at all”, but I would always find it and thereafter reject the food completely. All this until a week ago when in one hypnotherapy session, David has been able to eliminate what was a very detrimental phobia.
He did this by taking me back to an instance when I could recall a fish-related episode when I was five years old where it seemed as though I had choked on a fish bone. He found out that after this episode I didn’t “like” fish, but also found out that there had been a previous episode of the same type a year earlier. At this point I did like fish (before the choking episode). David helped me clear the fear associated with fish bones both arising from the first episode and the second.
After this I could reply that I liked fish, and was made to visualise myself eating fish with enjoyment. And a couple of days after this session, I did eat fish for the first time in sixty years! I cannot say that it was a completely enjoyable experience, but was certainly not filled with the dread I used to feel previously!
I just need some time now to get more used to eating it and slowly acquire a taste for it. I am sure this will come in the end. I have been instructed in ways to facilitate my eating of fish in the future, and I am confident that this will succeed completely in the end.
It is hard to believe that something which was so strong in me has been eliminated! I have tasted small bits of fish on a couple of occasions since, without any bad feeling or revulsion!
Thank you once again.”
Paul S.
