BY

Thomas Richardson

Sometimes it is to easy to miss the obvious when seeing a patient for the first time. About 10 years ago I had a young boy come to see me with his mother. His problem was bed wetting.

His mother said he had been wetting the bed regularly since the age of five. I took an extensive history from her with the intention of then asking the child about the problem. He had jumped through the usual hoops of seeing the family GP, trying herbal remedies etc but nothing seemed to work for him.

In the history the mother said they lived in a large old house. The toilet was situated at the end of a long corridor. When I heard this I asked what to me was the obvious question i.e. was the child frightened of the dark because if he was the answer could simply mean leaving a light on along the corridor or a chamber pot in the bedroom. She did not think he was frightened of the dark but admitted she had never asked him. Under hypnosis(while the mother was present) it came out that he was frightened of the dark and I told him that from now on his mother would leave a night light for him and a light in the corridor.

I used several other techniques suggesting that he would not wet the bed in future and after a week he came back and the mother was over the moon that he had not wet the bed for a week. A couple of months later she rang to say he was completely cured. I believe the light in the corridor was the main thing that helped in the cure and not necessarily the hypnosis. Using the obvious in this case worked wonders.

Another obvious case was that of a 20 per day smoker only I did not work this one out for weeks. Of all the patients we see on a regular basis the smoker can be the one that gives the most problems some stop instantly others take longer and there are quite a few who never stop.

I went through several routines over a four week period but he never budged from his 20 per day which I found unusual. On the fourth week I was ready to admit defeat and told him I could not think of any reason why he had not stopped. Then he told me he knew the reason it was because he did not want to stop.

His wife wanted him to stop and at her insistence he had tried chewing gum, patches etc to no avail. She then said “Right go to see this chap he stopped my friend and her husband from smoking so he will stop you” He said “Ok but if I go and fail that is the end of it. I want to hear no more about it” His wife was convinced that I was invincible and she would win.

Her husband told me “I do not want to stop. I am happy smoking and I only came to see you to get her off my back. All the time you were giving me suggestions to stop smoking in my head I was saying “I will not stop. I will not stop.” And of course his own suggestions were stronger than any I could put into his mind and so naturally he did not stop smoking. I offered to refund him the cash he had paid but he said he was just pleased that his wife would now stop nagging him about stopping smoking and he was quite happy to pay the price because he felt it was not my fault he had not stopped but his own. From then on besides asking why they wished to stop I also started asking if it was them or their partner who wanted them to stop!