Hypnosis DARK side

Hypnosis and regression are powerful tools to address various forms of self destructive personalities. What is the meaning of self destructive personality and how far this disorder may go?

More obvious forms of self-destruction are: eating disorders, alcohol abuse, drug addictions, sex addiction, self-injury, and of course suicide attempts.

Childhood trauma via sexual and physical abuse, as well as disrupted parental care, have been linked with self-destructive behavior. 

Self-destructive behavior may be adopted by the unconscious mind  as a coping mechanism when a person is overwhelmed. For example, faced with a pressing professional assessment, someone may choose to destroy or sabotage their work rather than cope with the stress. 

Self-destructive individuals may engage in annoying, disruption or alienating behavior, so that others will push th them away first.

Successful individuals may self-destructively sabotage their own achievements; this may stem from a feeling of anxiety, unworthiness, or from an impulsive desire to repeat the "climb to the top."

Self-destructive behavior is often considered to be synonymous with self-harm,  this is INCORRECT. Self-harm is an extreme form of self-destructive behavior. 

17 HABITS OF THE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE PERSON

Crediting and thanking:  Aletheia Luna 

Why do I refuse help from people who have my best interests in mind?  Why do I continue unhealthy habits that I know will eventually incur permanent damage?

These thoughts, and various others, have been circling slowly through my mind recently.  The subject of self-destructive behaviour is a very daunting topic, something dark that lurks in the corners of existence which we usually train ourselves to overlook.  Don’t believe me?  Look at all the smokers outside of office buildings, or the endless stream of failed relationship stories illustrating the covers of magazines.

If you’ve come to this article, you probably suspect deep down that in some way you are a self-destructive person.  If you are wanting better clarification or even confirmation that you are indeed a self-destructive person, keep reading.

THE DARKEST HABIT OF ALL

I’m not the first, but I certainly won’t be the last person to admit that I’ve been (and in some ways still am) a self-destructive person.

From pushing away people I love and housing self-defeating mindsets, to repeatedly self-harming in my teenage years … I’ve been down this dark alley more than once.  As I’ve grown, however, I’ve realized that self-destructive behaviors are expressions from our Shadow Selves, springing from low self-esteem and even self-hatred.

While psychologists speculate that self-sabotaging behaviors could be coping mechanisms (e.g. for stress, pressure, social demands etc.), others consider self-destructive behavior as ways of maintaining comfort zones due to lack of confidence or feelings of unworthiness (e.g. staying at the familiar bottom of the social ladder).

SYMPTOMS AND HABITS

Self-destructive behavior comes in many guises, some extreme, some not so extreme.  But in order to continue to internally evolve and improve your life (as well as those around you), it’s really best if you look at your devils right in the face.  Symptoms and/or habits of self-destructive behavior include the following:

1.  HOUSING SELF-DEFEATING MINDSETS.

This is an unconscious form of self-destructive behavior because it results in self-fulfilling prophecies.  Examples include thoughts such as: “I’m going to fail, I just know it”, “I’ll never get out alive”, “This will completely destroy me”, etc.

2.  FAILING TO TAKE ACTION.

This is a passive symptom, but still self-destructive in nature.  When we know something is bad for us, but fail to take any action or steps to remedy the issue, we are essentially setting ourselves up for, and guaranteeing, failure.

3.  OVER-EATING.

A nasty habit that results in many long-term health issues.

4.  UNDER-EATING.

Many under-eaters fool themselves into thinking they’re benefiting themselves.  Truth is that under-eating is usually a band aid for serious self-image and other psychological issues.

5.  FORCED INCOMPETENCE.

This means portraying oneself as unintelligent or incapable of successfully achieving something.  Forced incompetence usually stems from a lack of confidence in ones abilities and can function as a coping mechanism, e.g. academically.

6.  GOING OUT OF YOUR WAY TO HARM OTHERS.

What goes around comes around they say, and the negative influence you have on others, whether by words or deeds, will eventually manifest itself in your own life (e.g. sicknesses, tragedy, legal issues, isolation).

7.  SELF-HARM.

An extreme.  Self-harm is a sign of self-hatred and is mentally and physically destructive.

8.  SELF-PITY.

This is an unconsciously manifested form of self-destructive behavior.  Self-pity is destructive because it encourages us to remain inactive (i.e. wallowing in our misfortunes), rather than  encouraging a proactive approach towards life.

9.  DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE.

A self-evident form of destructive behavior, drug and alcohol abuse creates endless misery in the lives of addicts and their friends and family members.

10.  SOCIAL SUICIDE.

Not always committed consciously, social suicide is the act of deliberately alienating yourself from your peers.  This could be through a variety of irritating, repelling or antisocial behaviors.

11.  HIDING FROM EMOTIONS.

Failing to acknowledge negative (and sometimes positive) emotions creates a host of mental, emotional and physiological illnesses.  This is another form of unconsciously manifested self-destructive behavior.

12.  REFUSING TO BE HELPED.

Pushing away advice, refusing to go to rehab, avoiding the psychologist … not wanting to be helped cries “I don’t care about my well-being!” and screams “self-sabotage!”

13.  UNNECESSARY SELF-SACRIFICE.

Some people are in love with their misery because that is all they have known for a large portion of their lives.  Unnecessary self-sacrifice is a good way of making one feel “noble” and “altruistic” while masking the actual act of self-sabotage: giving up on hopes, dreams and passions that make one truly happy.

14.  SPENDING TOO MUCH.

Whether through chronic gambling or constant eBay purchases, overspending may seem unusual to have on this list, but is nevertheless a form of self-destructive behavior that limits ones freedom and peace of mind.

15.  PHYSICAL NEGLECT.

Getting poor sleep, refusing to exercise, eating unhealthy foods, and failing to maintain the general well-being of your body are all classic signs of self-destructive behavior.

16.  MENTAL NEGLECT.

Refusing, avoiding or failing to confront our psychological health issues (e.g. stress, anxiety, depression, paranoia, OCD, etc.) delays the healing process, resulting in significant long-term issues.

17.  SABOTAGING RELATIONSHIPS.

This is a complex one, and involves a large variety of destructive behaviors such as jealousy, possessiveness, emotional manipulation, neediness, violence and so forth.  When we don’t feel worthy of love, we unconsciously manifest this in our relationships through the way we choose to behave. 

• What is a PANIC ATTACK - by  Giulio Bianco

Ericksonian hypnotic psychotherapy, belongs to the school of short orientation psychotherapy.

With short orientation we intend not an incomplete or interrupted treatment, but a form of remodeling or re framing the symptom. Seldom an hypnotic treatment is intended to be complementary and associative to psychotherapy. Erickson was the first counselor to experiment a targeted and focused intervention when the prevailing psychoanalytical approach negate the possibility of stable and long lasting results.

The goal of a therapist that utilizes Ericksonian hypnosis is to ease and facilitate the mobilization of numerous of those internal resources involuntarily carried by a patient, at the level of the subconscious mind, that particularly in that communicational hypnotic climate allows an easy access to inner resources, eluding the limiting convictions or the rational conscious mind.

Through the application of Ericksonian hypnosis the typical conscious associative schemes may be temporarily suspended, bypassed, or placed on hold, for a specific time frame, allowing the activation of precious subconscious resources (imagination, beliefs, thoughts) that a patient does not even know to posses.

The vicious circle of 'panic attacks' symptoms, is in fact associated with an alteration of the conscious state that is spontaneously and unexpectedly provoked, without the subject's control, a phenomenon of spontaneous and automatic dissociation.  

What happen in a patient that experience the panic attack is a real process of spontaneous uncontrollable self hypnosis, developing an alteration of the conscious state, just in example like what happen in those space and time distortions, a catastrophic internal hyper analytical  dialogue, vivid mental images, somatic hypersensitivity and anticipatory anxiety.    

Utilizing hypnotic dissociation, as commonly described in 1977 Hilgars's neo dissociate theory, is possible for a reputable  therapist that utilizes hypnosis to take advantage of a characteristic common to every individual (fear), but noticeably marked on those subjects that experience the panic attack, to encourage and promote a shift of the symptom expressed by the patient.  

The therapist that utilize the hypnotic approach, won't suggest a solution dictated by his personal baggage of knowledge, or by standardized indications coming from theoretic psychological models, but would treat the individual through the utilization of those individual and personal rules broadcasted by his interlocutor,  this may guide the individual out of the problematic situation he (the patient) is experiencing.

As a matter of fact the therapeutical communication is in fact oriented, both with direct interventions, (paradoxical suggestions, observations, verbal exploration with the meta model), and with indirect interventions with and without trance (metaphors, analogies) to resemble and drive the patient to break old or stereotypical dysfunctional  schemes (cognitive or emotional) and to start elaborating the reality, in order to activate those reconstructive inner resources already owned by the patient. 

Utilizing hypnotic therapy as a media, is in conclusion a process that would help individual to utilize their own inner mental association, memories, vital potentials, in order to reach their own therapeutical goal.

Giulio Bianco