105. Psychosomatosis

PERSON: boy.
DESCRIPTION: psychosomatic disorder; medical student; troubled personality (not transparent, manipulatory, and dishonest); "I have clinical symptoms without remission: insomnia, swollen belly, tics, tinnitus, a feeling of constriction in temporal and orbicular muscles, and a skull that seems too big; I tried several psychotropic drugs, but they are only palliatives, and I have never seen any solution of the problem; my blood exams are normal, neurological examinations are negative, and even the electroretinogram and audiometric exams are normal; psychiatrists are puzzled, osteopaths and posture technicians found nothing of importance; even the dentists who examined me didn't find anything clinically significant; I have no pain at all, and my nervous system seems more over-excited than exhausted; paradoxically, I have the feeling that this problem is simple to solve, maybe because the severity of the symptoms comes from its location, which prevents me from studying; I was better when I had anginose pain in my thorax; now I'm no longer fearful nor anxious, as if the symptoms had moved from the mind to the body, and this made me mentally stronger; I cannot accept that physicians continue to say that I have nothing.. when they don't see clinical findings then they say that nothing is wrong, but they are wrong; I study with difficulty, and it is like reading inattentively, as if there were some worries in the background; my brain seems drugged, and it thinks excessively: I am a neurotic with complexes; it would be enough for me to rediscover the confidence in passing my university exams, but in order to learn I must be well; in short I'm blocked, I'm withdrawing, I'm ruining myself".
APPROACH: employment of the following orientating question: "either anxiety or symptoms.. you cannot escape from this.. therefore, when you will be well, what will you do?"; hypnotic dissociation ("phenomenal.. I'm feeling doubled, I'm spectator of myself").
RESULT: appearance of intense tremblings and anxiety during the hypnotic dissociation, with strong client's amazement ("I am astonished.. I really didn't expect this.. I cannot understand why I developed the anxiety.. I didn't think at all about it.. and I was not asleep.. on the contrary, I was two persons at the same time, I was watching the anxiety, but I was unable to overcome it.. now I know that I'm awake, but I see a light all around, and I'm telling me that I can solve the problem, it's there, I'm almost ready, but something is blocking me, I cannot, I feel my skull under a growing constriction, I feel that I must necessarily be in hypnosis, and certainly not awake!"); deepening of his conscious hypnoanalysis, suggestion of changing his posture to avoid boredom; spontaneous beginning of healing ("now I feel an expansion in the skull, I feel better.. I'm very very calm.. now it's like an anesthesia, I'm a lot more tired than before, almost sleepy.. I don't know how it is that I am able to talk"); request of utilizing some unconscious ability of acting without symptoms; hypnotic work stopped until the next day because of the tremendous fatigue; my comment: "you developed a deep trance many times.. I have counted at least 12 trances"; second session: no formal employment of hypnosis; client's comment, tipically medical: "beyond the collapse of the symptoms, not only I feel less tense and less ruminative, but also I noticed an improvement that I would define profound, not physical.. yesterday in hypnosis I tried to distract myself, but I found myself unable to do that, and I was very concentrated with an highest performance, and I could not believe it.. the most impressive thing is not the decrease of symptoms, but the return of my mental control, which was absent until then.. before now, my head seemed to be into a revolving washing machine, while now my thoughts stop by themselves, and I like very much this automatism.. I thought that hypnosis meant to fall asleep and to awaken healed, but on the contrary it has been a total but vigilant abandonment, something fully physical, completely new, and very pleasant because the mind was more lucid then ever.. the only symptom of hypnosis has been a low ability to see.. everything was out of proportion and distorted".
UPDATE (2 years): no further news; session paid only in minimal part; promise ("don't worry, give me the coordinates of your bank account, and I will send you the money") never kept.

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