eating problems

Bill O’Hanlon quipped that there is a new entry in the DSM - “Excessive Labelling Disorder”.

We are never dealing with anorexia or any other eating problems. We are always dealing with a unique human being to help them to discover their own resources to resolve their suffering.

I was referred an 18yo girl by her GP who wrote that she was suffering from anorexia. When I informed the girl that I didn’t have much experience with anorexia, she was adamant that I could cure her, because her GP said I would! Then it got even worse when she said that her father was a diplomat and was taking up a new post in London in 6 weeks - so I now had 6 weeks to cure her anorexia!!!!!!! In an act of desperation, I asked her about her travels with her father’s diplomatic different locations, in particular, were there any countries where her eating was not a problem. She said that when they were in Italy, food was not an issue because in Italy people didn’t care about how you looked, they just treated you like a person. So, we had several sessions where, in hypnosis, she recalled her Italian eating. I got a postcard from London saying adamantly that I had permanently cured her anorexia. Whatever happened, it was not a function of my experience, wisdom or qualifications.

A young woman was in a psychiatric hospital for treatment of her “anorexia”. The treatment focused on withdrawing privileges if she didn’t eat. In spite of the treatment, she continued to lose weight. When her brother organised her release, the doctors told him that he was signing her death warrant. When the whole family saw me, the mother cried about her fear of her daughter dying, and the whole family searched for a tissue. When I interrupted their helpfulness, they started to discover that the mother was entitled to her tears, and so, the daughter was entitled to her eating behaviour. This interruption of the family’s interactions was the beginning of her learning to be the one in charge of her eating. Ten years later, she was still leading a normal life, eating normally. The change happened when she and her family were respected and were able to learn - not being treated like as defective needing treatment.

A woman in her 20s wanted hypnosis to help with her weight and overeating. She said that she was in a shop with her friend, and bout a bag of chocolate coated peanuts. Her friend said “No wonder you’re so fat, eating those lollies”. The woman told me that she was using a lot of willpower to only buy one packet - she felt like buying three packets. She was surprised when I asked her, next time she was in that shop, to buy as many packets as she wanted. When she returned for her next session, she was surprised as she reported that this time it was chocolate coated aniseed rings. She showed me in her bag, there were two packets untouched, and the one that she had started, was still half full. After she had lost the excess weight, she told me that she had been diagnosed with bipolar condition, and since she had stopped constraining herself, her psychiatrist said her moods were more stable than the last ten years.

A mother was worried about her 8yo son because he had a very limited range of food that he would eat. He liked skateboarding, and was proud of learning new tricks. He was able to connect learning new tricks on his skateboard with the possibility of learning new tricks in eating food, he was able to enjoy learning to eat new food, but only when he was ready. He liked to hear that he may need to help his parents to realise that he was going to learn at his own pace