23. Blocked student

PERSON: man.
DESCRIPTION: excessive self-control; unsatisfactory self-hypnosis despite an experience of more than 20 years; refractory to psychotherapy; unable to be fluid in his preferred sport activity; unacceptably low performance.
APPROACH: respect of his need to control (relaxation impossible, fluidity impossible); offered the idea of improving his self-control in a beneficial way; utilization of this man as a demonstration volunteer in front of my hypnosis students, in order to show that his statement of being not hypnotizable is wrong; induction: unexpected and authoritarian request of a cataleptic and ideomotor phenomenon; rapid entrance into the trance despite his conscious resistances; brief panic for his loss of control on the hypnotic phenomenon, then astonishment, then extreme interest, then euphoria for his unbelievable success; subject's request to visualize, because "this is a thing that's definitely impossible for me"; easy achievement of some visualization by means of an imaginary blackboard where he has been asked to hallucinate a writing with his eyes closed; further subject's request to make his arm unable to bend (a phenomenon never achieved in self-hypnosis, but easily done within few minutes in front of my students).
RESULT: frequent spontaneous entrance in self-hypnosis during the rest of the lesson; manifestation of tremors, dissociation, and automatic movements of his arm, a behavior so amusing for my students and me that the subject came to the decision of holding and immobilize that hand with his other hand.
UPDATE (1 year): self-hypnosis very satisfactory, with surprising visual hallucinations; less rigidity at every level of his personality.

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