9 really amazing Weight Loss Hypnosis Results

Weight Loss Hypnosis Results

Over eating is always emotional eating. There are reasons why you have a poor relationship with food. But they  are complex and hard to find. Sometimes we find what it is, sometimes we don't. It doesn't matter.

Eating problems are complex. They say that problem eaters are trying to eat their emotions.  Hypnosis is a simple and direct way to deal with out of control eating.

The Weight Loss Hypnosis Results here are all selected from people I have helped. With a bit of help, they have managed to reverse years of abuse and shame. They are now in control of their feelings, in control of their eating and in control of their life.

They managed to reverse years of bad eating habits. Maybe you could too?

Weight Loss Hypnosis Results 1: The Mountain of Food

Ilana came for Hypnosis because she was obsessed with food. She was actually quite trim, not overweight at all, but from the moment she opened her eyes until she went to bed she thought about food. She felt life was a constant struggle against wanting to eat.

It hadn't been too bad when she was a teenager but lately it had begun to rule her life.
I explained to her that all our behaviour, no matter how odd, is designed to keep us safe.

Visualizing the problem behaviour

I also told her about other clients I had treated with the same problem. "The method is to change the mental image." Ilana insisted that she had no pictures associated with her compulsion to eat. She really didn't think there was anything there to explore.

Ilana was put into trance and asked to associate into that feeling of wanting to eat. She was then asked to allow her mind to be open and to become aware of how she represented that feeling.

She immediately said 'It's like I am on a road, and there is a mountain of food blocking the road'. It consisted of great piles of cakes and chocolate and all sorts of food. 'And I could never eat enough to get past that pile of food'.

Replacing the metaphor

The session then used metaphor therapy to suggest transformations to the metaphor.

'What would you like to have happen to that mountain of food?'

'Get rid of it!'

'And how would you get rid of it?'

'A bulldozer could push it off the road and over the cliff'.

'And what would happen after that bulldozer pushed the food over the cliff?'

'I could go on and do what I want'.

Further suggestions cleared the way ahead. Then the 'way ahead' was explored and Ilana was taken through instances of what she wanted to do that had been blocked, and she was reconnected to her own feelings of success.
The session finished with a visualisation of her walking through a sunny meadow seeing herself having achieved everything she wanted.

Food is not Love

As a final check to make sure that everything was cleared, I asked her to "think about eating and see if there was anything left that needs to be dealt with". She said 'No, but I remember something'.

She came up with a memory of her and her older sister at the table and her sister being difficult and not wanting to eat her dinner. Her father said to her sister 'The reason I love Ilana is because she always eats her dinner'.
That little girl internalized the message 'if I eat, Daddy will love me'. That explained her compulsion.

Weight Loss Hypnosis Results 2: The Hungry Head

This case started with an email:

Hi David

I have read your website and I like your approach. I am suffering from overeating and weight gain, and also general anxiety. Just thinking about contacting you is making me feel very anxious.

Could you please let me know some further details? What times of day are you available and how much do you charge? What is your waiting list like?

regards

Marianne

First Session: Anxiety

Marianne was somewhat overweight but not hugely so. What I first noticed was her anxiety. She was having panic attacks and sleeping badly. There was anxiety at work, anxiety at home and she felt very unnerved whenever food was about.

She worked in a large advertising agency where there were frequent client presentations with catering and weekly staff functions to celebrate some work achievement. They always included drinks, sandwiches and nibbles.

Marianne would find herself thinking about the food, almost obsessing about it, urging them to get on with the speeches so she could get to the food. It was all she could think about.

She would sometimes spend the session trying to work her way towards the food table without being noticed. And what bothered her was that she was not even hungry, didn't really want it, but could not prevent herself.

Sometimes she would sneak into the preparation room to pilfer the party food before it started. It was as if something was driving her towards the food, something she could not prevent. It was bad enough being constantly heavy, but the feeling of being in the grip of some uncontrollable force was worse.

The session used Metaphor Replacement Therapy to expose how Marianne represented her relationship with food in her mind. The session allowed Marianne to 'go inside' and deal with the basic issue. Inside her mind, she was holding an image of a 'hungry head' that had to be fed. Transforming that image transformed her feelings about food.

Outcome

A few weeks later I received the following message:

Thanks for your help, I feel I have made huge progress after our session a couple of weeks ago. We worked on my eating issues, but I have also had a big improvement in my mood and confidence in all areas. I have also bought the Learned Optimism book and I'm working my way through it, and finding it very helpful.

I have a new challenge coming up. Next month I am going to Germany on a work trip. I have travelled quite a lot before, but not by myself to a really foreign environment, and I've always been very anxious about travel details etc. My general anxiety levels are rising again, around work and the trip, and it is really bugging me.

There is a part of me that knows I don't have much to fear but I can't rationalise the worries away. Do you think we could have a session again before the end of October?

Second Session: Social Anxiety

This session also used Metaphor Modelling. This was a much easier session as much of the original anxiety had been removed, and this particular fear was a more generalised anxiety about meeting new people and maybe not coming up to their expectations.

The session identified her inner images of feeling as though she always has to put on a mask at these kind of functions. It was resolved by developing symbols of power and confidence to replace the feeling of anxiety. She left the session filled with confidence and looking forward to the trip, knowing that she had the resources to cope with it.

Shortly after the session I received the message:

Outcome

Hi David

Everything is going well. I had a middle of the night wake-up a few days after the session, I was thinking about a work problem that I felt I was not coping with, but the feeling of panic and fear was completely missing! So I was able to go back to sleep again easily. And in general, my stress levels are much lower, and my weight has dropped a bit again,

I'm off to Germany in 8 days time, and I feel perfectly confident about it!

And then:

I have had a grueling few days at work, with a performance review that did not go as well as I had hoped. No major problems really, but the focus was more negative than I could cope with. I admitted that I was not coping with one particular role, and my boss agreed with me!

So he is going to reassign it, but it made me feel like a failure. I had a very bad patch yesterday and today, back to feeling sick and not sleeping. However, my husband helped me work through your ABCDE process and by the end of today I felt much better.

I don't feel concerned about Germany, and I think I can rebuild my confidence about work too.

r.

Marianne

Third Session: Emotional Eating

About two months later Marianne got back in touch again. She had lost most of her anxiety and felt on top of things at work. In fact all compulsions to eat at work had simply disappeared. She could not get in touch with those feelings at all, it was as if they had happened to somebody else.

However, she was not losing weight any more, and in fact over Christmas had put on a lot of weight and was now becoming anxious about food in the home environment. Again she had a compulsion to eat. She would open up the pantry 'just to count the cup cakes, to make sure they were all there'.

And of course just had to try one, to see if it still tasted the same, and the next one.... Even as she was doing this, she realised it was irrational, unnecessary, but still found herself unable to stop.

Mothering and food

This session started by exploring how Marianne felt about food. She revealed that her mother had sometimes made the kids lovely meals and treats, they would all sit around the table laughing and happy, and be a family, but then at other times her mother would go off on some personal thing, and leave them all to fend for themselves.

Then it was was fighting, shouting, tears and sulks. Marianne can to associate food with being loved, accepted, rewarded and included. To be without food meant being none of these things. And she felt bad when she didn't have food, so when she got hungry she got grumpy.

She started winding up other people, then they got angry with her and she ended up alone in her room, hungry, crying, being miserable. All her self esteem, who she was, what she was worth, became mixed up with food.

The circle of despair

The metaphor replacement process began well but then began to show a circular pattern: I eat because I'm unhappy, I'm unhappy because I eat....

In order to break this pattern I switched to the Dragon Slaying technique. I got Marianne to imagine her problem was a dragon. I then got her to describe the dragon in ever increasing detail. When that was exhausted I then started her imagining the every aspect of the dragon being its opposite.

Doing that forces the mind to envisage the image and the continual small changes eventually causes a Threshold Effect and the dragon is suddenly transformed. More changes and suggestions eventually got the dragon to fly away. This was the mind metaphorically letting Marianne know that the problem had been transformed.

Marianne felt immediately that something had changed, even though she could not say what that something was. But I knew that she had dealt with the core of her anxiety. It was all about a fear of not being loved.

Outcome

About two weeks later I followed up and asked her how it was going:

Hi David

I'm doing pretty well, thanks! I have lost about 2 kgs. And more than that, I feel that the burden of thinking about food all the time has gone. I have been eating as I feel like it, and choosing what I really want, even if it is a piece of chocolate, but the great thing is that I can have a couple of squares and then no more. I

do have to stop and think, "shall I have some?" but it is not the same anxious argument I used to have. Sometimes I say yes and sometimes I say no.

Another cool thing is that when I say no to myself, I don't feel sad, or scared of getting hungry or grumpy. Sometimes I have even LET myself get hungry, and also I've thought - "I'm not hungry, I think I'll just have a snack for dinner" - unheard of before!!!

And I feel like my enjoyment of the affection of my family is greater as well.

There's not much of a change in exercise patterns, but I think I'll see if I can motivate myself in that direction. I have noticed since I've lost that bit of weight that I feel stronger and more compact, and more inclined to exercise, but still struggle to prioritise it over other things. I certainly feel more optimistic about the chances of it being effective now!

So thanks a lot again - I'll let you know how it progresses.

Marianne

Resolved: No more craving for food

And after another two weeks.....

I've lost another 1 kg - it still feels a bit odd, but I definitely have lost my overdeveloped interest in food.

It is quite possible that Marianne will be back to see me again sometime in the future, but her life will never go back to the way it was. The mind is complex and many layered, and no doubt there are other things that could be changed.

But as each problem is dealt with, any remaining problems are much simpler. She may well learn to deal with them herself, or just decide to live with them. But that terrifying, overwhelming need is gone for ever.

Weight Loss Hypnosis Results 3: Comfort eating

I had a client who came to me about weight loss. To start with, I really could not understand what was motivating her to overeat. Depression is the most common source of being overweight, but this client showed no signs of it. She seemed bright and cheerful, although she was clearly well overweight.

I asked her what she got from eating. Like most clients, she said she has no idea why she ate. "I eat when I'm bored". "I just like chocolate and snacks". "If there is a snack in my desk, I eat it". "So why do you buy the snacks?", I asked. "I don't know, I just love eating."

Sports career ruined

I asked her if she had always been overweight. "No", she said. "Up until about age 16 I was really skinny, really fit. And then I injured my knee. I loved playing softball, it was my life, and then it was all over. Soon after that I started putting weight on and have battled with it ever since".

I have heard this before from athletes. They put their whole heart and soul into becoming good at the sport. They become really good, and hope to make a living as a player. And then they get injured, and their sporting career is over.

It is a devastating blow for young person, and many athletes go through a period of despair and resentment. After that the athlete feels they have nothing to lose, nothing to live for, so they get into smoking, drinking, drugs and whatever else they want to do. And then they find they can't stop it.

I suspected that might be the case for this client. "How did you feel when you could no longer play softball?" She said "Oh, it wasn't just the softball. I got a terrible attack of asthma immediately after that as well."

A perfect childhood?

It has been my experience that asthma is usually associated with stress. Asthma in children is usually associated with stress with the parents, and at home. So I asked her how she got on with her parents. "I had a wonderful childhood. I really loved my parents. We got on really well". Usually when a client says they had a wonderful childhood, I suspect they're hiding something. So I probed a bit more.

It turned out that my client was the middle child. Her older sister bullied her, but no more than sisters normally do. For some reason her parents were very hard on her older sister, but really indulged my client. "I remember going away for six or eight weeks in the summer on holiday with my parents camping and having a wonderful time with them. On my birthday I always got cakes and presents and chocolate. Really, I could have anything I wanted."

And then it all went wrong

So, summarizing, I said "So you injured your knee and got asthma". "Yes" she said, "and then I went away to live with relatives in a different town." Because of her intense asthma she was advised to leave her home town and go to a much drier atmosphere. So she moved away from home and lived with some distant cousins.

They were cold and distant, and not very happy getting a teenager forced on them. And thus started a period of intense unhappiness for her. And this was when she began to eat.

It was now clear why she was addicted to eating. At the time she was living in a cold, unhappy place. She had lost all her friends. The passion of her life, softball, was over. She was no longer the golden girl who was indulged by her parents. Her life was empty, and turned to comfort eating.

Part of her unconscious mind was trying to get back to those wonderful days of holidays and Christmas when she was given whatever she wanted. It was her sad attempt to get back some happiness. And that was what her eating behaviour was all about.

And she had been eating ever since, for more than 20 years she had been overweight. Since then she had got married and her parents had died.

Choosing the therapy

It seemed to me that my client was stuck in the past. She was trying to get back to a golden time, and had to be helped to move on from there. Thinking about psychological resources, using her mother as a resource seemed like the most promising approach.

I decided to use a metaphor called Bridge to Freedom. This includes leading the client in trance to a bridge. On the bridge there is a Figure of Power who helps the client to get rid of whatever it is that is holding them back. I took her through the visualization, adjusting it to her own particular circumstances.

I fully expected that she would see the Figure of Power as her mother.

Then I used another technique called Cathedral of Parts. In this visulization the client is taken into something that represents their own inner mind. Then all the parts that make up the person's personality are brought out. One of them is not doing what it should.

That part is singled out and changed. Normally the client says that they saw all different parts of themselves in various forms.

Coming out of trance

When I brought the client out of trance, we talked for a while about what she had experienced. She said "I feel completely different about eating now". I asked who the figure on the bridge was. She said "I think it was me". This meant that she had been using her own resources on the bridge. Using your own resources is much more powerful than getting resources from somewhere else.

I asked what the parts look like. And to my great surprise, she said "they were all foods". It seems that, in this particular case, it was actually particular foods that were her problem. It really was chocolate and snacks that were the culprits. So in her mind, she  changed her relationship with them.

And that was the end of her comfort eating problem.

Weight Loss Hypnosis Results 4: Binge Eating

Today I had a repeat client. She came for smoking about two years ago. She told me she was able to give up smoking 30 a day, and hasn't smoked since. But her problem is that she is binge eating. It is not cravings. She got much heavier and then lost a lot but is still overweight.

The issue is binge eating after work. Not every day, but several times a week. Something in her head tells her that she should not be eating, but she just keep doing it anyway.  When I hear a client say "I know I should't but I do it anyway", then I assume that this would be a psychological problem associated with childhood.

Childhood roots of Bingeing

Her father was the High Commissioner for Germany. She was brought up there until she was 12. Then she came to New Zealand. At first they lived in the capital, but then they moved to a tiny town in a remote coastal area. She didn't mind that place, it was on the beach although there was nothing to do.

Her parents divorced age 14. She moved schools every two years. She hated her stepfather so she left home at age 16, got married early and had kids early.

Her mother was a life long weight watcher member and seemed to be obsessed about her weight. My client said that her mother had never actually told her not to eat or directed her in any way about it. But I felt it was completely unlikely that growing up in that household she would not have picked up something about an emotional connection to eating.

It was notable that she didn't think there was anything strange about the multiple interruptions in her young life, and she didn't think it had any effect on her emotional state at all. Just a normal childhood. "Oh, and daddy had lots of affairs".

After some questioning she said that she was a bit worried that if she became little she would get noticed, and would be somehow 'out there'. Then she said that she realised it was a bit more than that.

If she became little she would feel awesome, but then would be worrying about whether she was going to fail or not. And she feared the humiliation and criticism.

Metaphor Therapy for Binge Eating

There was so much going on in her life that I could not identify which bit to focus on. So I decided to do Regression and see what came up.

But even as I was talking, something in me changed. I was going to do regression, but chose to do metaphor replacement therapy instead.

After a Relaxation induction, I focused on getting her to think about the feeling of failure. Feeling isolated and embarrassed and being noticed. I asked, "What thing is that feeling like?" She said  "It's a little box". It was blue, same all the way round, hollow, no lid, cold and smooth, with sharp edges and it was light. I asked what she want to have happen to it. "I want it to go away. "

But I couldn't get it to say what that would mean for her, or what she would be able to do if it went away. I went back to trying to get her to change this box. She could make it bigger and bigger, but she could not then make it smaller from that size. When it got bigger it changed colour to white.

I encouraged her to explore every aspect of it. But it stayed solid, huge, hard, strong, white. She really didn't want to change it. I tried getting her to imagine all sorts of tools she could use. I asked her to hit it with a hammer.

No effect. She was able to make it bigger and bigger and bigger. But it remained unchanging, solid and enduring, and she really just couldn't get rid of it.

Eventually I suggested that everything gets old, and that started a process of change. Eventually, she could  imagine the thing crumbling.

Secondary Binge Eating metaphor

Then it turned into a grey rock. I tried to suggest that she could find tools with which she could hammer it, or scratch it, or break it up, or do whatever she wanted to it. But couldn't find anything. After much prodding, eventually the rock turned into a flat stone and she was able to break up the flat stone and throw it into a rubbish bin.

That got rid of whatever feeling the blue represented. I brought her out of trance. She said 'I feel much lighter now'. We talked some about how she feels when she is over weight. She said people regard you differently when you are big.

She said "I won't let people treat me as the funny little fat girl. I won't let people put me in that box" And I asked "Would that be a little blue box?"

Weight Loss Hypnosis Results 5: Eating and motivation

It's hard to create eating motivation. I had a consultation this morning with a woman who I had last seen in September. She came to be hypnotized to stop smoking. She was back, not because she had started smoking again: she hadn't, but because she was suffering from cravings for fatty food.

Her background was that she and her husband had broken up a few years ago. Then her mother died about one year ago. Her daughters had left to start their own lives. The economic downturn meant that her job was safe but slow. Basically, she felt she nothing to live for.

She had no one to look after, an empty house and a boring job. Her focus was just to get through the day. The consequence was that she no stimulus, got bored, and started thinking about eating. In the absence of any other calls on her time she fantasized about what to eat.

With nothing else to think about, food became a consuming obsession. She thought about it and thought about it until she just had to get up and go buy something 'nice'. She ate that and then then boredom set in again and the whole cycle repeated.

The result was massive weight gain. Previously she had smoked instead, and whenever she was bored she would go out and have a cigarette. So snacking was now filling the the gap she used to fill with smoking.

What causes overeating?

The root cause was the same: a lack of purpose in life. She was drifting from day to day and filled in the void with whatever activity gave her a little pleasure, smoking or eating.

It was only after a long session of question and answer that she came to realize what was happening to her. I asked her to consider her way of life from an outsider's perspective. She needed to become aware of her own eating motivation. She was overeating because she was just living by default, drifting, with no plans, no goals, just one day after another.

So I encouraged her to think about what she could do and she came up with a plan. She was going to use the spare time at work to do online courses on her computer to challenge herself to get more skilled at her job. In the evening she would go to evening classes to learn Cordon Bleu cooking.

That would  gradually build up her confidence and her social life by getting family and friends round to share meals she would be proud of.

Hypnosis and Eating Motivation

I therefore devised a hypnosis plan to make her dissatisfied with her current life. It focused on her weight and her aimlessness in order to motivate her to seek change. I added a visualization of a happy future to give her a goal to go for.

Then direct suggestions to emphasize how she had succeeded in the past and how she can succeed now. I finished with a kinaesthetic feedback technique using hand movements to convince her that her subconscious had agreed to make it all happen.

I cannot decide to change people's lives to what I think they should do. But this was a way to use hypnotherapy to motive her to find her own resources to move forward in the way that was best for her.

Weight Loss Hypnosis Results 6: Emotional Eating

Weight Loss Hypnosis Results 7: The Riding School

Much of my work is about weight and body image. I see people who overeat, or can't lose weight. I get people who are always thinking about food, or who yo-yo diet. They usually have no idea why they behave like that. I also get people who are actually thin, but still obsess about eating.

This client was a successful young mother of three. But she was obsessed with food and the fear of getting fat. She felt that people were looking at her all the time and hated it. She had felt that way since she was a teenager. To start with she just accepted it as part of who she was, and worked round it as best she could. But now it was getting more and more intrusive and affecting her life.

She was so sensitive about her body image that she could not undress in front of her husband. She could not even undress in front of her young children and fretted constantly about putting on weight.

As we talked I explored when this had started and she identified an event that almost certainly was the trigger. She had been a happy child with lots of friends. She and her friends got interested in horse riding. They all went to horse riding school where they were taught about how to approach horses, how to sit, how to groom and look after the horse and so on. My client loved it and felt really at home there.

Body image origin

Then one day the instructor started a lesson on how to help other people ride. The instructor explained how to help disabled people to get up on the horse. Then she said that fat people need a special way to get into the saddle too. And she selected my client from the crowd of girls to demonstrate how a fat person gets on a horse.

From that moment everything changed. My client suddenly felt exposed to ridicule, that she was fat, that secretly every other girl thought that she was fat. She knew the instructor had singled her out from all the other girls because she was overweight. Actually, she wasn't . Up to that point, she had never given a thought to her weight. But now, deep inside she knew, somehow, that everyone had been looking at her body all along. She had just been too stupid to see it.

She became acutely sensitive to her body. From that moment on, she felt people were looking, judging, criticizing. And thus started a life long obsession with her body image.

Overeating is always psychological

It is not often that you can trace the exact reason for the weight issues to a single incident. But in this case we can pinpoint the exact moment that body size became an issue for her.

Knowing the source, it became easy to help her with hypnosis. I used regression to revisit the incident in trance, and make it come out differently. By re-experiencing the event she was able to come away with a happy memory, and her body image problem ended right there.

Weight Loss Results 8: Eating is out of control

My client today was a huge obese woman.  She told me "I can't stop putting on weight. My eating is out of control".   looking after son's kids

She said that she had always battled with weight and issues of control. Right now she feels she is out of control. She said "It got worse six months ago. Before that I had lost 15 kg. Now I have put it all back on again, plus more". This is a common story with people to come to hypnotherapy for weight loss. In my experience, issues with weight are always emotional issues. When you trace it back to the origin it is usually rooted in how the client was treated in childhood. In this case, the issue was emotional, but was actually rooted in the recent past.

Why eating is out of control

Six months ago, one of her children dumped her four children on her because they couldn't cope. Her child and the partner are into drugs and alcohol. They can't cope with life, can't cope with their children, and abandoned them with their grandmother. It was supposed to be for two weeks. But the parents went off and gave everything over to their drug habit.

My client now feels that imposed upon, but cannot do anything about it. She feels that this is so unfair. She brought up her own children, launched them into adulthood, and was looking forward to spending the next 10 years as an indulgent grandma to her grandchildren. And now she's back having a full-time job looking after for young children. She sees no way out of it and no one else in the family is offering to help.

Longing for an empty nest

She is beginning to resent the children and acting grumpy with them.  She cannot sent the children back to their parents. Social security will not take them, because they are not in danger where they are. Her other children reject the parents as losers who need to front up to their responsibilities, and won't help.

There is no way out.  Her expectations of a lovely retirement hasn't happened.  She expected things to be perfect, but it has all turned out wrong. It's all getting too much for her and she sinking into despair.

This a classic case of late onset depression. She has just given up and eats to comfort herself.

How to treat out of control eating

I talked about how to deal with her depression. The first thing is to recognize that it is not her responsibility. I told her to have some compassion for herself and her situation. She feels guilt over resenting the children, and somehow having failed her own daughter. I am not a counselor, but I suggested various ways that she could seek help. Together we agreed a goal to get these children looked after by someone else within six weeks.

Then to help her get the energy and confidence to reach that goal, I used hypnosis. I took her into trance and did an extended parts metaphor therapy to identify the parts she needed, and to get those parts energized.

Afterwards, she said 'I can find a way forward now. I am not going to put up with this any longer. Thank you."

Weight Loss Results 9: Everything makes me nervous

I had a first today with a client. The client was a tiny woman but grossly obese.  She seemed to be almost as broad as she was tall. She was also excessively nervous and fidgety.   And that was the problem she wanted to deal with: anxiety. Anxiety makes her overeat. She said she had been anxious for as long as she could remember. I asked her "what make you anxious?" She said, "Everything". I assume that this was a joke, but she told me she was deadly serious. "Everything makes me nervous."

So I started to look for the reason for the anxiety and the overeating. I expected that there would be something in her childhood. So I got her to tell me about situations where she feels nervous generally, and any specific situations where she felt nervous today. She couldn't find any. She just said "everything makes me nervous."

I started to talk about her overeating and what she might do to prevent anxiety. I outlined some situations where this or that might happen. As she thought about these, she began to get visibly anxious.

Not how to deal with anxiety

She reached down the side of the chair to get her handbag and put it on her lap. Then she opened it up and said to me 'Do you mind if I eat?' I thought I had misheard. I asked her to repeat what she had just said. To my surprise, she took out a packet of cookies. Apparently she carries around a bag of butter cookies everywhere she goes. She nibbles on one every time she feels anxious. My questions were making her feeling anxious right now, so she wanted to start eating a cookie while lying in the chair talking about overeating!

Weight Loss Hypnosis 10: Bulimia

This woman has had eating disorders all her life. She suffered from bulimia. It started in her teenage years. She managed to stop on her own when she left university and had to get a new job. She felt that she would now be in control. And it worked when she got her first job because she realised that she couldn't keep doing this and keep a job.

Then she changed jobs. She had a week in between. This allowed her mind to begin to ask "what if?" And she just fell apart he left the new job after two days and had three months off.

I really wasn't sure what to do with this client. Bulimia is known for being extraordinarily difficult to treat. I asked her about her history. She was very open and happy to talk about her condition. She said that at its height she would vomit three times a day. Pretty much after every meal. She ended up dangerously thin. Right now she is worried that she is going back into it and vomits twice a week.

I couldn't really find any one thing that triggered it or that she was worried about. Her parents had always been helpful and supportive. She could not think of anything in her childhood that might have set it off. She said in it was all about anxiety.

This gave me the idea that I might be able to deal with the anxiety directly through metaphor replacement. I asked her to think about the anxiety and what it was like. Just before she feels she has to vomit. She said is a mixture of anxiety and fear.

I told her to focus on the fear. I got her to concentrate on the fear to allow it to come out to be aware of it. Fortunately for me it was right at the surface and she was able to latch onto the fear immediately.

I asked her where the fear was in her body. She said it was in her chest and in her head. Previous experience has shown that I cannot do anything when the client says the feeling is in the head. So I focused on the feeling in her chest.

I asked her what it was like. After a while she said, "it's like a square".

I said, "is it a square or a cube?" "It's a cube."  I then got her to describe the cube in increasing levels of detail. She said it had sharp edges. When I asked "how big is it?", She said "it's about the size" and gestured with her hands indicating was about the same width as her body.

She said it was hard, cold, solid, heavy, and grey. When I asked, "and what else to know about this cube?" She said, "I have to carried about with me."

Having established the fear as an object, it was just the case then of getting her to change it. I asked "can you imagine making it a little bit bigger?" She immediately said "yes". I asked, "and can you make a little bit bigger still?" "Yes." "And even bigger?" "Yes."

"And can you make it a little smaller?" "Yes." And she proceeded to demonstrate that she could make it a little smaller. I encouraged her to make it smaller and smaller until at some point she said "it's in my hand I can hold it".

I asked her, "and what is it look like now? How has that thing changed?" She said, "has rounded edges, like a die". I then asked her what she would like to have happen to this thing. She said, "I would like to throw it away". I asked, "And where would you throw it?". "Into the ocean."

I needed to make sure that she got rid of the thing completely. So I asked, "and where would you throw it into the ocean?" She said "from a clifftop". I then said "now imagine yourself on that hilltop. Imagine you have that die in your hand, and you are throwing it off the cliff".

To my surprise, she picked up a hand and made a throwing motion. I said to her, "describe what is happening as that thing goes into the ocean." She said "it's gone into the water with a splash".

I wanted to be sure that the object was totally destroyed. So I said to her "what happens to things that went to the ocean?". She said "they settle on the bottom". I could not get her to give any more detail, so I prompted her to begin thinking of her to destroy the object. I suggested that saltwater might have an effect on it.

She said "is beginning to rust the surface is now motled". I then went on to suggest that the rust would continue, it would flake off, that thing would break up into small parts. I then got her to agree that the thing would get rolled around in the waves and broken up into tiny pieces like sand, and they would just be dispersed out and gone forever.

I then asked to take three deep breaths and relax even more. In that state, I asked her to become aware of her own body. I told her, "now check on around your body. Check your knees and your knuckles in your nose and everywhere. See if there's anything left of that old fear that needs to be dealt with. Or has it all gone?"

After a moment she said "it's all gone".

We then spent some time talking about bulimia and how it affected her life. It really is a devastating disease. She was a lovely young woman, and yet had never had a boyfriend.

We talked about the various therapies that she had been involved with. I asked her "what did you find most useful to you in those therapies?"

She said "I found a form of group therapy very helpful. I met a lot of people, very ordinary looking people, who also had the same illness. That allowed me to believe that I actually was normal. There wasn't something weird about me. That I wasn't the only person in the world to do this. I also found some of the CBT exercises that I was given were useful in turning off the thoughts".

I asked her to check again about the fear that she had been talking about. I wanted to be sure that I had actually made a difference to her. She said, "no, it's really gone. I can feel it. I know that it is just not there now."