Gastric band Hypnosis
I saw a client today who wanted me to do gastric band hypnosis on her. She slumped in the chair and told me that she had to lose weight. She acted as though the weight was something being put on her and she was a victim. Her whole attitude was that there was nothing she could do about it. Everything about her just seemed like apathy.
As I asked her about her behavior and attitudes to eating. She just sat there and expected me to believe she wasn't overeating, didn't have any problems, life was just fine. All she wanted was for me to do the gastric band thing to her. She was going to just lie there while I dissolved her fat. Basically,"Just sprinkle the fairy dust over me".
The gastric bypass hypnosis fallacy
Her whole attitude was that the weight gain had nothing to do with her. I could not get any sense that she was willing to make any changes at all, didn't need to. Just fix me and I'll be gone. I have had several clients like this. I think the whole gastric band hypnosis idea appeals to people who want someone else to do something about their behavior. They are basically looking for an effort-free magic solution.
She said she had been piling on the weight since she got married six months ago. It didn't seem to have anything to do with the actual wedding since they had been living together for seven years before that. She told me that she was on depression pills. She was a twin, and her nonidentical twin was grossly overweight. I asked about her upbringing. She told me her father was a drug addict, was narcissistic, and had mental health issues. He physically and verbally abused her mother. My client said that she was not abused, although she was frightened by all the arguing when she was growing up. She did not say very much about her mother, except that her mother spend her time trying to placate her father.
Exploring motivation to exercise and diet
I really wasn't getting anywhere with her. She was holding back on me. Not deliberately, but because she really was not in touch with herself. I discussed depression and how this affected her. She gave me conflicting views about exercise. She had been to outdoor hockey as a player this week, she had been to the gym, but still managed to be overweight. I asked her why she didn't stop eating. She said "I enjoy eating". That really was about the depth of her introspection on this. I could not get her to even start to think about her own motivation to over eat.
It seemed to me there were three possibilities. She was suffering from some genetic based issue inherited from her father and mother. Or, she was holding in a lot of bad stuff from childhood and her upbringing in an unpredictable household, and not looking at that. Maybe she was actually being influenced by the side effects of the depression medication she was taking.
Ending the session
After a lot of discussion I told her that I thought it might be a side effect the medication. I was careful to stress that in no way was I qualified and she should not change her medication, but she should discuss it with her doctor. I was hoping that seeing another person might jolt her out of her current state. Her defenses were just too good, I could not get past the barriers she put up. In fact, I could feel myself getting annoyed inside at her total stonewalling responses. Not a good response from me.
So I told her I couldn't do anything further for her at that point. She said that it had been a useful discussion because it has raised several points she had not thought of. I offered the session at no cost because I had not fixed the problem. She insisted on paying something. So it wasn't a total loss for either of us.
