More dental related hypnotherapy
Another bit of dental related hypnotherapy lined up for one of my friends, this time it's for a fear of needles. After a quick search around online, it didn't look very promising that hypnotherapy would be able to help with this. Several pages like this:
Thankfully after asking about it on the Hypnosis.com forums, it seems hypnotherapy works just as well for needle phobia as any other kind of phobia (which is what I'd suspected in the first place, but the info I was finding with Google seemed to suggest otherwise). Also, after speaking to my friend a bit more about it, I think it's more of a general fear than a phobia, and that it's probably something specific to needles at the dentists (he feels fine with needles for piercing). Unfortunately I don't really have much time to prepare for this one - I'll be seeing him tomorrow pretty much straight before his dental appointment. So I'm probably going to focus on being generally relaxed while he's at the dentists (which is always a good thing), along with trying to boost his trust and confidence in the ability of his dentist. There's a fairly good trust metaphor for relaxing prior to medical work in Hypnotherapy Scripts (Havens & Walters) that will probably come in useful.
Hopefully I'll be able to help in some way, that's what all this is about after all. Also, if I don't it means my success rate will drop from 100% to 50%, which is nowhere near as satisfying :).
"Overcoming needle phobia does present special difficulties, and it does not usually respond well to traditional techniques for overcoming phobias"
Thankfully after asking about it on the Hypnosis.com forums, it seems hypnotherapy works just as well for needle phobia as any other kind of phobia (which is what I'd suspected in the first place, but the info I was finding with Google seemed to suggest otherwise). Also, after speaking to my friend a bit more about it, I think it's more of a general fear than a phobia, and that it's probably something specific to needles at the dentists (he feels fine with needles for piercing). Unfortunately I don't really have much time to prepare for this one - I'll be seeing him tomorrow pretty much straight before his dental appointment. So I'm probably going to focus on being generally relaxed while he's at the dentists (which is always a good thing), along with trying to boost his trust and confidence in the ability of his dentist. There's a fairly good trust metaphor for relaxing prior to medical work in Hypnotherapy Scripts (Havens & Walters) that will probably come in useful.
Hopefully I'll be able to help in some way, that's what all this is about after all. Also, if I don't it means my success rate will drop from 100% to 50%, which is nowhere near as satisfying :).
2 Comments:
What if this person's dentist really is crap? Wouldn't making them trust the dentist be a bad thing in that case? Wouldn't it be better to find a good dentist who you'd automatically trust?
I'm not meaning to have a go - guess I'm just thinking like a programmer. :)
By Mal, at 10:03 AM
If the person's dentist is crap, it would be a pretty bad idea to increase the levels of trust. But in this case, he is comfortable with his dentist about everything else, and wanted to stick with the same dentist. It was just the needle part that freaked him out a bit. Seems a bit odd to me though, cos I've always thought drills were much more dangerous than needles :)
As for the thinking like a programmer thing, there's nowt wrong with that! It's the best way to think!
By Wilka, at 11:23 PM
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