Hypnosis to block specific comments

[jerico]

Hello to all,

I have been carefully reading posts on this forum, especially those concerning the possibility of having a hypnotherapist erase disturbing events.

I just have a simple question: although I know that specific events cannot be "erased", can a hypnotherapist help a patient forget about specific comments heard in the past, especially if the subject of these comments is totally trivial and bears no consequences.

Example: let's say someone is obsessed about his feet. He would store dozens of random comments heard about his feet. Could a hypnotherapist help a person forget about all the random comments that were made made about that person's feet? In other words, could a hypnotherapist help a patient block all memories of comments made about that patient's feet?

I know the question may sound strange but I would be immensely grateful if you could give me some kind of answer as we are a number or people concerned by this issue.

Thanks a million.

[Merlin]

>I have been carefully reading posts on this forum, especially those concerning the possibility of having a hypnotherapist erase disturbing events.

Keep reading. Your answers are in the archives.

> Could a hypnotherapist help a person forget about all the random comments that were made made about that person's feet?

Yes, but that would not be the best approach.

[jerico]

Dear Merlin,



Thank you so much for your answer.



My son is being treated, medication + Behavioral Therapy (BT), fo severe Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). He has been following such a treatment for three years now. He has attempted to his life several times, most recently in the last month, and I am as desperate and worried as a father can be.



My son obsesses about his feet. Of course, 90% of his obsessions are baseless but they are fueled by an endless "database" of comments (most often badly understood) or even jokes having been made in the past and that my son has recorded over so many years. These comments are still so vivid that they often bring him to total despair and he is convinced that he can’t go on living another day. All this for comments that normal people actually naturally forget (I’m sure you don’t remember every single comment having been made on your hands for example).



His behavioral therapist has been trying to reprogram his perception of his feet as well as reprogram the faulty mechanisms that leads him to overanalyze and distort any comment he hears about his or even other people’s feet.



But a major obstacle to the effectiveness of his treatment resides in his inability to forget all the past comments about his feet that keep feeding his obsessive behaviors. There are so many and so present in his memory that they create an obstacle for him to fully embrace the therapy and give the process a chance of working out.



His therapist (who admittedly knows little about hypnosis) and I have been wondering if the recall of these otherwise insignificant comments could be blocked using hypnosis.



In this case, hypnosis would therefore be used in conjunction with BT, limiting the risk of negative consequences. I totally understand the risks of having a perfectly sane individual forget about an event/person. But wouldn’t that risk be minimal for memories such as these “random comments” that anybody normal actually forgets? Also the therapist would make sure to accompany/take into account the effects of the hypnosis so my son would not be left “unprepared”.



I look forward to your answer.



Thank you so much in advance,

Jerico