Fear Itself

Fear Itself  by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

     I remember 30 or so years ago having developed a fear of heights. I’m not sure of the reason for it, but it had become quite apparent that my fear was getting in the way of doing the kind of things I really enjoyed, like climbing sea walls and up and over rocks in order to get to special swimming holes. I thought to myself, I must overcome this. So I set  to break the phobia.

      I challenged myself. I travelled to the tops of buildings and stood on balconies. I could feel myself  nearly losing balance, nearly teetering over. Nearly, but not.

     At the time, I worked in a tall building that, disconcertingly, had a glass lift in the middle of the place that took you from floor to floor in full view of everything. People could look in and people could look out. It was scary. Until my decision to break my fear, I used to ride it standing dead centre with my eyes closed. Afterwards, I’d stand exactly at the edge facing outwards and allow myself to go deep into the experience, immerse myself in it, and ride that elevator.

     This immersion therapy worked and I came eventually to really enjoy the experience of near flight by going to the heart of fear itself. There are kinder therapies around though, and hypnotherapy is one. Rather than exposing someone to the den of the lion of fear, the subject of fear is contextualized as part of ordinary, every day experience and it thus loses its ferocity.

     Fear is a useful survival tool and gives us the means to avoid situations that could be life threatening. Fear causes a flooding of the whole body of useful adrenaline and cortisol that allows us to get away from danger. It’s when the danger is not to the body, but to our emotional state that fear can turn into a psychological phobia. It’s then problems arise and it can cripple us.

    There is a very rare genetic problem, called Urbach-Wiethe disease. Sufferers don’t experience any fear at all, or so it is thought. There is a certain degree of evidence to suggest that some forms of fear may be experienced by these people.

Fear is processed in the amygdala, an almond-shaped part of the brain, as well as other emotions. In people with Urbach-Wiethe disease this part of the brain is calcified over, hardens, and shrivels up, and doesn’t function for fear, even though sufferers have normal cognitive function and can experience feelings of joy, happiness and sadness.  A sense of fear, though, can be induced been getting subjects to breath high concentrations of carbon dioxide, as a recent study has shown. The feelings of suffocation and panic were similar in both the control group and those with amygdala damage. It seems life is much simpler than brain physiology indicates, at least at a very basic level.

     The word fear is intrinsic to the English language.  In Old English, it was faer, in Middle English  it was fere, and meant a sense of sudden danger. It came to mean “to terrify and frighten”. A phobia is “an irrational fear, horror, aversion.” The word phobia comes from the Greek phobeo, “terror, fear, panic”. Phobos is the name of one of the moons of Mars. It is also the name of one the twins born to the Greek God Ares (God of War) and Aphrodite (Goddess of Love). Phobos (fear) was twin to Deimos (terror). I find mythology very interesting because here is a kind of psychological awareness of how it is with us humans; semi-aware parts of ourselves are personified into gods, goddesses and demi gods.  Here in war, in fear, love is met, and here is something more than mere survival. In this juncture profound change to a life lived, thus far, is possible.

     Continuing this line of investigation, the word phobeo contains within itself a mysticism, a reverence for something not yet known, something intimated, a mystery, respect, a sense of awe. It sort of reveals itself in Phoebe, daughter of the sky (Uranus) and the earth (Gaia) She is a Titan Goddess of Radiance and Brightness, and a  prophetess at the Oracle of Delphi. She foretells many changes, many hopes and dreams.

    A fear that seems to cripple can be a sign that a war is going on within and a life that brings delight isn’t yet being lived. People come, often bringing more than a fear. They sometimes bring depression and generalized anxiety. There is, in anxiety, a tremendous amount of energy; and energy that can release huge and fundamental changes.

From fear comes the possibility of real and  enduring shifts in perspective. From the darkness of fear, comes this lightsome being of light, so feeling and identifying fear is the beginning of some pretty fundamental change in a person’s life. It’s a very good place to start: from fear itself.

Being in a Sea of Ambiguityby Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

Being in a Sea of Ambiguity

I, and a tour boat of travellers, was snorkelling off Julian Rocks, Byron Bay, the day before Christmas. Around us were literally hundreds of fish, many kinds, many colours, many sizes. I saw a couple of green turtles, several practically translucent jelly fish, and two rays. Some of the other snorkelers saw a leopard shark; I didn’t. I did see, in one fleeting moment, the fish grow frightened, but they resumed their relaxed manner quickly. It was like a ripple effect: from full faced gentle swimming to a rapid streak and then full faced gentle swimming again. Whatever it was, it was a momentary threat.

I was gathered up into the schools and could observe the behaviour of each type of fish. There were the small orange bottom feeders, the sleek mid-swimmers, and the sociable upper dwellers. These social ones swam around me closely. I watched one of them apparently feed from a jelly fish: mouth inside the jelly cup, but neither seemingly getting hurt.

It was choppy that day, but the sea was glass-like and visibility went down at least eight meters with no loss of vision. It was fantastic.

In the sea, a place I love most of all, almost anything can happen. We humans, after all, are merely visitors here. It is an ambiguous  massive space.

Ambiguity is the quality of being open to more than one interpretation, an inexactness. Snorkelling in the sea is quintessentially being present in the mysterium tremendum, that is, in an overwhelming mystery, where some things are identifiable and understood, but mostly just ever felt. I find this space extraordinarily calming and sometimes offers an incredible sense of one-ness with everything, but I am aware that there are many for whom the sea is utterly terrifying. Sharks, millions of them, fill the space of their imaginations. The terror of a shark-populated mind gets in the way of ordinary life and sometimes manifests as anxiety and depression.

Anxiety and depression may be described as disorders of focus, as Michael Yapko puts it.  The focus is put on what’s wrong rather than what’s right; what has caused them pain rather than what has helped them. Sufferers  get locked into a sort of mouse-wheel of hideous thoughts: round and round and round, and it’s torture for them.  This is where psychotherapy and clinical hypnotherapy really helps. Both reintroduce, through focussed attention, ambiguity in a safe environment, and thus a greater flexibility and willingness to experience a wide range of feelings and thoughts and connections. If something has terrified anxiety and/or depressed people and caused them to get stuck in their fear, being gently supported, perhaps a little bit rocked, in a sea of guided ambiguity allows for the possibility of healing. This is a healing that isn’t imposed, but arises from a person’s own resources; resources that had hitherto been submerged under iterative thoughts. 

A few years ago I toyed with the idea of offering water therapy. That is, taking a client into the sea and being with them as they encountered their fears, offering them an entré into relaxation and choicefulness in an environment that cannot ever be fully known. I still like that idea, but maybe my insurance company wouldn’t cover it. Some hypnotherapy sessions, anyway, have this quality anyway, at least this is what is sometimes reported to me by my clients.

A hypnotherapy session begins usually by inviting the client to close their eyes and start to focus on themselves: sensations (skin touching the leather of the chair, softness, supportiveness, etc), perceptions (the sound of my water fountain - little whirring pump and water splashing, faint tinkling of bells, a car going by, wind, thoughts, the sensation of breath, rising up of imaginary ideas, noticing what happens when images are evoked, and so on. From this focussed place I can then introduce ideas of how misinterpretations can occur and then reorient the person to other ways of seeing.

Depressed and anxious people tend to see ambiguity in negative ways, but actually ambiguity merely offers a multitude of possibilities and, like the sea and the rest of life, we can learn to not fight it, but let go and relax – with awareness -into what we choose to focus on and act with acuity and right-mindedness, doing whatever it is that helps us deal with whatever life offers us.

The Magic Glove by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, BA, BA (Hons), M. Couns., PhD, Dip CH

Oct 2014 
 

Imagine wearing an invisible glove that, when you touch a really sore part of your body, diminishes the pain, or takes it away altogether. You can look at the glove, and yes, there really isn’t anything there, but yet you can feel it, sort of. There is a  sensationless sensation covering your hand. It’s the magic glove of anaesthesia.

The anaesthetic glove is a technique used in clinical hypnotherapy that is profoundly effective in changing the experience of acute and chronic pain.

What occurs in this hypnotic process is not yet fully understood, but the effect is measurable, just the same.  Brain-imaging studies show a significant and consistent change in how pain feels experientially as well as the reduction in  firing around the associated place in the brain where pain is felt. How successful this change is depends on how receptive to hypnotic suggestion a person is. 75% of people studied in experiments investigating this show a substantial improvement, while some receive moderate improvement; very few are not responsive at all. For evidence based proof, if this is important to us, these are very good odds.

The repeated and prolonged use of pain relief medication in chronic pain conditions such as arthritis, fibromyalgia, headaches, backaches, temporal mandibular disorders, etc is sometimes not advised. Sometimes such medication significantly damages the gut, or causes others reactions that are very unpleasant, like nausea, vomiting, headaches, etc.  Hypno-analgesia decreases a person’s sensitivity to pain when the strength of such pain is interfering with every day life. Pain, obviously, is useful in telling us something is wrong, but too much pain is debilitating. On-going pain also lengthens the amount of time a person stays in hospital. Reducing it, allows natural healing to occur more easily.

The magic, or anaesthetic, glove may be taught during the course of  hypnotherapy sessions so that it may be employed whenever the patient wants to control their own level of pain.

What is going on in the brain, as shown by brain scans, demonstrates that hypnotherapy actually produces a physical effect, and that it isn’t just a psychological technique. We are, after all, whole beings (mind and body united). 

Brain scans have certainly been used interestingly in the observation of what is going on neurologically, but the measurement of hertz levels also shows very interesting things. A paper I read a couple of years ago illustrated how, under hypnosis, the person’s brainwaves showed a dominance of theta, delta, and a  bit of alpha patterns. Theta brain-waves are associated with healing, strengthening the immune system,, creativity, intuition, enhanced concentration, and increased memory. Theta brainwaves are found mostly in sleep, meditation, and hypnosis, as well as deeply relaxed states. The heightening of theta brain-waves in hypnosis points to the especial value of such techniques for sleep disorders. Delta brainwaves are associated with deep sleep, where a person’s heart rate slows down and a deep relaxation occurs. Alpha are active in visualization, daydreams and fantasy. It is said that alpha brainwaves are like the bridge between beta’s wakefulness, acuity, and the analytic mind, and theta’s relaxed state. Interestingly, the same paper said the hypnotherapist’s brainwave pattern exhibited a similar one to the patients, but with one exception. The therapist also showed beta brainwave patterns. The layout of brainwave patterns for the therapist is something I literally experience every time I do a hypnosis with a patient. I can “feel” the different levels of awareness while I shape my language, organize the structure, decide how many times I need to say something, which metaphors to use, observe what is going on for the person (all processes in which beta brainwaves are dominant). At the same time, I, too, enter a state of relaxation, shape what is to be visualized, and feel it in my own being. For instance, the image of lying in a boat might be evoked. I will feel its gentle rocking, even while I speak of it and invite my patient to enjoy it, or not. Sometimes, being with the person as they enter the healing space, I feel it too. It is as though I am sharing their dream. 

Neurological investigations are interesting, but this is only part of what’s going on in the hypnotic process. The bottom line is that what happens in each session needs to be relevant and useful for the patient, as well as how committed they are in their own healing. Without this, there is not much point. Commitment and relevance is the critical thing. While I can write of magic gloves and all that, the intention of a person with regard to their own healing matters more than any magic. 

One session is rarely ever enough. Most responsible hypnotherapists recommend at least three sessions. The deepest change occurs when three sessions are committed to, and participating with the patient in these, I see actual healing taking place and the person’s reports feeling much better.