Tummy problem

CASE STUDY 1

A woman who has IBS (cramps, bloating, intermittent diarrhea..Various tests showed up blastocystis hominis. The suspected culprit, possibly pet cat. Of course the contagion concept is rife & permeated deep into the psyche of the public. On top of that these crittas are considered responsible for the symptoms.

GNM says that many of these microbes are symbiots who only become pathogenic with the associated conflict & then only are active in the second phase under control of the brain. It does seem that different species are correlated with different organ systems and embryonic germ layers. Fungi with brainstem, bacteria mesoderm & virus’ with cortex directed tissues.

Anyway we set up the system to identify the belief system behind gut problem.

Elicitation

N.B. the italics what the statement from belief scan charts (maybe the odd tweek). Then the info in brackets is the statement used to set up the therapy with. There has been some remodelling to arrive at a linguistic representation which is semantically loaded & that is a truth to them.

Body – declares 6 beliefs

I’m not ready to have a relationship with a child (future fear of consequences of giving birth when not in full health) – Need to feel strong

I have been suppressing despair for a long time (when i think she didn’t encourage me I can’t let go of it)

My anonymity keeps me safe

I must smother my grief (I could have been so much more –Sad)

I must swallow my feelings (I am constantly checking that I feel ok)

I must fight to keep what i love (They are out to get me)

Body states this belief system will give rise an emergent belief – which is

I am vulnerable with her

The body identified these beliefs to integrate

I am vulnerable with her & I am constantly checking that I am ok

When started it came apparent very early on that one of the main emotions being checked for was vulnerable – the checking was also about physical sensations as the client had previously had panic attacks. That said the behaviour was there before those episodes.

There was this belief that to allow herself to feel vulnerable would expose her to exploitation. On further examination it amounted to a sensitivity to demands of others. That they must want the upper  hand and to win over her. This created a feeling of pressure which would lead to aggression in the form of giving the person the silence treatment, withdrawing. The thought being ‘you never expected this’ – a righteous indignation.

Explored – how people asking you of what they want is a demand & even if so how is this a problem which ties up to assumptions about people wanting to get one over (in what way). Also enquired as to a value which she would like to embody. Wise was the response. Then we applied the value to the behaviour of silence treatment which was acknowledged as a means of causing upset. This reframing pattern causes an acknowledgement that better ways exist to deal with situation.

The core aspect of this problem was the relationship with the mother. The feeling was that a lot of her problems related to her mothers’ upbringing of her – she felt she was completely micro-managed & was separated from her grandmother who she adored. A lot of this had been processed but there was this strong belief that due to the fact that the connection was biological she would always be affected by this ‘need to be accepted by her mother’ (can’t get rid of it). The other core belief leading to sadness was that due to’ her not being encouraged I missed out on fulfilling my potential.’

To loosen the idea around being biologically connected I enquired into her husbands’ family ties. He had a sister he never saw & neither then cared tuppence. I said the connection was just as strong in that siblings are deeply entangled, grow up within the same generation and the prevailing social norms. A very shared experience. This is an example of counter exampling. The client identifies an example of the opposite. We tend to generalise / universalise so this gets the consciousness to start considering it as ‘her / his model of the world. her husband seemed perfectly happy in the knowledge that him and his sister didn’t feel close.

As stated earlier she had a strong reaction when she perceived she was being demanded of yet here was a demand of hers that her mother accept her.  This is ‘apply external behaviour back to self’. Invariably the very behaviour which is seen as unacceptable can be found to be being done by the accuser. This has the effect of making them realise how easy it is for all us to be unaware of the consequences of our own behaviours on others. They shift position, let go as to hold on at this point would be to castigate oneself.

Then of course you explore the behaviour – in this case the mother ‘not being loving.’ You look at model of the world. In this case – does the mother love herself. Often the person in question (i.e. mother) has deep self devaluation so doesn’t. Then you challenge with the presupposition that what we can’t do for ouselves how is it possible to do for others. This expectation is seen as unrealistic, couple this with the recognition that this essentially is a demand which seemed totally unacceptable when placed on the self.

The other aspect was a need to look together regardless of what thinking with an aversion to being seen as weak because these people get taken advantage off.. one had to be strong

Interestingly these 2 beliefs were – I am vulnerable to her and I have to constantly check myself were almost one and the same with

I have been suppressing despair for a long time (when i think she didn’t encourage me I can’t let go of it)

I must fight to keep what i love (They are out to get me)

I must smother my grief (I could have been so much more –Sad)

The other two could be connected into some of what was said. The need for anonymity could be related to needing to hide her feelings – look together & I need to be strong was ideal based on a strong away from towards weakness & what that meant.

After session noticed that when people ask of her she gets much less irritated, also when taking herbs there was an uncomfortable head sensation which disappeared. Sadness was experienced but with some time passed through. The checking of how she feels downgraded.

Session

We could have worked on other aspects of the one above but body said there was another  one operating so we elicited this.

Belief system

• It bugs me when I can’t work it out
• I have lost time – sad
• I don’t know when to let go of old
• I don’t trust others
• My heart is bruised (it could have been so much better)
• I have to tread carefully with partner (I must be able to see stuff coming)

EMERGENT – Its not safe to feel

The body selected

I must be able to see stuff coming & i don’t know when to let go of old

We started with see stuff coming

It is a pattern of hyper-vigilance – the sense that she breathes everything in with situations. Atmosphere, peoples’ energy, mood etc

This related to her relationship with her mother, the shock of moving away from grandmother. There were stuck pictures which she went inside and tapped with the echo from the past.

Is the picture close / far – moving / static  – colourful / black & white. What happens when you do this is that the picture (submodality) starts to shift as the energy is processed. The thought was ‘Nothing is safe anymore.’ This become a command to the central nervous system and there is a constant watching in the behaviour – all senses alert – the meaning is to pre-empt trouble in the hope it can be avoided. The main feelings which this command is designed to avoid is vulnerability / exposure. Naturally we explored ideas around vulnerability and whether the expenditure of the energy watching was delivering outcome. It was acknowledged that as an adult there wasn’t really a threat.

What was surprising was the intensity of the anger and sadness which surfaced. This had been worked on before and it goes to show that there can be a layering / compaction of feeling around a theme. A core template is laid down and all similar experience funnels into this COEX system (condensed experience). The sadness was the ‘my heart is bruised’ coupled with this feeling that the damage would be forever – like a grinding / heartbroken. This was coupled with ‘I can’t understand how a mother could be like this with a child (critiscising / scathing / blaming / dismissing etc) – there was strong anger which was tapped on. The sadness was linked to the idea  that it could be ‘so much better for the both of us.’

The sticking point has been that due to the biological connection can I be free of this..we found example with someone she knows well where they don’t have a relationship with sibling and don’t mind. Here we are counter-exampling in the hope to loosen the belief. Siblings in a way are there for a longer period of each others’ life, share the same cultural influences (each generation has a different input i.e. tv exposure, values etc) so in many respects there is validity to the use of this as a similar comparison to the mother. Any attempt at reframing has to be as good if not better than what is being challenged otherwise it won’t be accepted.. this one had been used before and here it was coming up again. Importantly some emotion was processed and it is this energy that gives an idea its potency.

We didn’t need to do letting go of old as this was all about that (implicit). Bowel issues often are about not being able to let go (resentment), small bowel anger caused by a sense of deprivation and not being able to assimilate. She couldn’t understand how a mother could not be loving to a daughter, anger was around the consequences and having spent many years looking a for a solution to panic attacks and self esteem, feeling that she had been guinea pig for many practitioners and the Dr’s attitude.

 

SESSION

Background

This chap has persecution complex. The teeth are deteriorating, there is anxiety, feeling that the emotions are all bottled up, has outbursts of anger at the perceived injustice of being a victim. The main sense is that people are watching him. There is a split in that sometimes he thinks they want him to grow up and get on with his life, on the other they are monitoring him to make sure he is a good boy (doesn’t succumb to bad habits). He believes there are pinhole cameras in his apartment, that the poles and neighbours are keeping tabs on him. He used to think that one day people would come in, kidnap him and kill him. Once in a while this fear would grip him. It seems to have downgraded, possibly due to an integration we did. Not long after the fear was so great he vomited and had a bout of diarrhea. The extremeness of this suggests it was a healing crisis. The fear was the emotion being squeezed out, the load was on the gut sensorially. The fact that he rarely if ever gets fear like that suggests something was processed. He has also noticed a downgrading of anger with some integrations and some things seem less charged when he thinks about them

This case is very challenging due to a double bind in the thinking. ‘You are not there, how do you know what is happening.’ He does doubt what he thinks and is aware that he doesn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle and may be wrong. This not knowing he struggles with. We have done a number of integrations and there is a sense of space opening up in his consciousness. It’s a bit like defragging a hard drive. He attributes a lot of his problem to when he used to take LSD and experience extreme vulnerability. He was unfortunate to be at a house when the police rushed in at dawn – this would have been a conflict shock, there was another police raid but much gentler also. Also he was in a house when some masked men with machetes and hammers tied everyone up, they were robbing the place. He wasn’t as scared as some people but how the subconscious reacted is anyone’s guess. Quite probably the fear mentioned earlier was related to that event. The body highlighted the police and armed robbery as significant contributing factors

In my mind this is where the methodology of a run of the mill Germanic New Medicine practitioner is lacking. They will do a CT scan, identify the conflict is operating, but then what. Telling the person it’s in there head makes no difference and in fact drops them into justification. They have seen people come out of constellation but it seems like luck of the dice. I have gone in and thought if we can switch off the ‘I am being watched’ then the rest will become easier. The consciousness is recursive so with this continuing to operate the stress builds up again and again.

The problem  – is that unlike most people there is an immunity to reframing. I can point out the gaps and with people functioning relatively normally will update their mapping of experience with the effect of a more accurate model being developed.

Obviously one questions the efficacy of the process being used but certainly many people have had very positive effects so then we think this case proves that non-linearity is at play. One processes ‘I am being watched’ and nothing changes. It seems like it is an emergent function of a multiplicity of beliefs. In other words the system can withstand a number of interventions, it reverts back to a function which no doubt is very meaningful and is the stable form for the system. The hope is that there will be tipping point at which point the symptom / function starts to wither. One wonders about core structural patterning i.e. an inability to let go could be operating across contexts.

We have modelled out one whole constellation.

Belief system

I can’ change how I think and feel
I don’t know how to open my heart
I think only of the negative
I can’t let go of past hurts

The body picked

I think only of the negative / i can’t let go of past hurts

You can see that he only thinks of the negative because he can’t let go of past hurts.

If given a chance he will drop into the story and as very charged this can become a distraction. Up until a point it is good for off loading but in this session we used muscle testing to explore the function of the behaviour. I got him to acknowledge that even though it felt that others were responsible for how he felt, the feelings were none the less his. This he agreed with. The real issue was twofold. One was that he couldn’t accept his feelings of vulnerability which was strongly coupled with uncertainty. The belief was that vulnerability was bad. We explored what else vulnerability could mean and encouraged him that in future he should immerse himself in this feeling not deny / distract from it as this locks it in and then it exerts its influence on him. The other aspect was that he felt timid which would trigger a sense of incapability which lead to him doing nothing. The body said that the belief ‘I am a victim’ was a justification for not having to do anything as how could he, look what was happening to him. So you can see that the thought form is a coping strategy for the feeling of timidity / incapability. The anger would rise with the I am victim – powerless thereby compounding the situation . when we started the other aspect – can’t let go of past hurts, he acknowledged that he would actively tried to avoid the hurt and the sadness it would bring as it made him feel vulnerable – we pity those who cry, they seem a little pathetic. As were dropping through this he had realised that the avoidance of vulnerability was the problem so this didn’t take long, just some acknowledgement.

It came out that his feelings are blocked, we asked the body

I want to control my reserve ( I am reserved)
I don’t know how to be kind to myself
My needs aren’t considered
I must always be on guard
I have to protect my identity (I can’t let others know what I think and feel ).