NLP:

A Trauma Case Study

By: Gil Monin

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Gil Monin

NLP therapy

Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP) is a field of study that studies the human experience. This field is in its academic diapers, which means that it is not yet taught in Universities or Colleges. It is taught in special schools, with experienced and qualified trainers.

NLP can be used for many applications. Its first use was in the field of therapy, and it modeled the greatest of therapists in order to find out how they get their great results. Today, NLP is used in education, business, therapy and every other subject that requires people and language.

The purpose of NLP therapy is getting the client what he\she wants. The practitioner does this by eliminating or changing the construct of the mental blocks, which block or stop the client from getting what they want. Almost all of the techniques of NLP associate the client with their inner-resources, and dissociate the client to their problems.

In NLP therapy, the practitioner uses language patterns, communication models, well-formed questions, and techniques.

Generally, NLP is an attitude of curiosity that goes with a methodology of investigating. The client communicates and the practitioner’s job is to fully understand the client’s experience of their problem. The practitioner then changes the way, or construct, of the client’s experience, thus changing the thoughts\feelings\behaviors of the client.

In order to achieve this understanding and changing, the practitioner has a stock of language skills and techniques. These skills and techniques are taught in the NLP schools and are developed constantly by NLP practitioners around the world.

NLP puts an emphasis on our five senses, since the world is experienced by us through our senses, and through them alone. The practitioner then listens and watches the client as he tells his story, whilst marking the way the client communicates his senses. Words like ‘watching, colors, bright, blurry’ are visual words, ‘listen, rings a bell, quiet, noisy’ are auditory words, and so on.

That way, you can have a good understanding of the client’s experience. For example: The client says “She hurt me”. Now, if you try to make a mental representation of that experience, you will probably fill out a lot of missing information, like the specific way in which she hurts the client (it could be physical, or linguistic hurting, it may also mean that she left the client by himself and that hurt). The practitioner then starts to ask specific questions such as “in what way did she hurt you?”

Those kinds of questions, which ask for specific information, are essential for understanding that part of the client’s experience.

The second thing, changing the experience, follows the rule of ‘If it does not work, do not do it. Do what works’. That means that if a client keeps thinking the same thing over and over again, and they get stuck with a certain problem, you should change the way they think about it. NLP rarely changes the content of people thoughts. Most of the time, you change the sequence or the association of the problem. (This will be clearer as the case study follows).

What is in this case study?

* All names, dates, and places have been changed to protect identity

This is a case study about a real case I dealt with. The case was over after three sessions. I used my mentor’s help at the beginning.

This case is about a woman I saw, who had an auto-immune genetic disease. She came to me because she was a bit depressed and she believed that she could not do anything with her life. The case study follows our sessions together, from start to end.

This case study includes a background, my meetings with my mentor, my sessions with the trauma client, the aftermath and concluding remarks.

The following chapters advance chronologically. I added a techniques and skills section to each of the sessions.

Background

June was a 35 year old woman, who belonged to a minority. She was married. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy about a year after the marriage. The baby was her first born. During that pregnancy, she had what the physicians thought at first to be a stroke. Later, after many examinations, the doctors told her she had an auto-immune disease.

In that disease, the immune system attacks the myelin which surrounds the axons of neurons of the nervous system. The myelin’s job is to help the neurons communicate with each other. When it gets attacked and destroyed, it gets harder for patients to move body parts, and they sometimes get parallelized. Most of the time, this disease attacks in seizures, and each seizure can last hours or weeks, causing the patients not to be able to move parts of their body. Memory could be impaired for the duration of the attacks. After the seizure, patients gain the control of their bodies back. Each seizure can cause more damage and can last for a longer period. The reasons for these seizures are unknown. They are connected to stress, genetics, and environment. Some people get one seizure their whole life, while others get many.

After her diagnosis, she gave birth to her first born and immediately had a second seizure. This continued to happen for the following eight months. She would get an attack, go to the hospital, stay there for a few weeks, get better, and come back home. In those eight months since she gave birth, she had three more seizures.

She saw a psychiatrist in the hospital. He was referred to her because she got more and more depressed. After several meetings with him, he told her “I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.” And so she stopped seeing him.

I was studying trauma treatment with NLP tools, and we were required to practice a case study in order to get the diploma. As an amateur in practicing NLP, I had no way of tracking people with traumas. So, I turned to friends and family in my search for a person with a trauma.

A friend of mine was June’s best friend. The friend knew June since school time and saw how June lost all hope for living during the time June was diagnosed. When I asked my friend about anyone who would want to experiment with me, the friend did not have to think much. The friend called June and June called me.

I had a small clinic I rented with a partner. We did not have many clients, and most of the clients were there for handling relationship related troubles. June was my first ‘real’ client.

My mentor

I had supervision from my teacher. The teachers at the NLP school split the class into three groups and each teacher supervised a group. That way, you could call or email a teacher any time you wanted to ask a question. Whether you wanted to know if your client qualifies as a trauma client, or what to do during your sessions, you always had someone to ask.

I told my supervisor, Abby, about June. I had not met June yet, but I was told of her having the auto-immune disease and I had no idea what to do.