Not all the time, but sometimes, I love this job.

Last Tuesday I saw a new patient; a ten year old girl who could not sleep in her own bed, in her own bedroom. She was afraid of burglars, fire, gangsters and paedophiles. I asked if she knew what a paedophile was and she said she thought so. I didn't pursue the matter. She lives in an area where gangsters would stand out like clowns in a cemetery but her fears were real enough.

I had her mum sit in on the session. I told her not to act and, in fact, not to do anything. She didn't know anything about hypnosis so I gave her a brief explanation and then did a rapid induction. That went well and I had no trouble getting real IMRs. I asked her subc if it was ready to give up all the fears and she said she was. So that's what we did.

This girl's habit was to go to bed, lights on and door open. She'd stay awake while everyone else was up. Her brother and sister would go to bed, then her mum. Finally her dad would turn off the lights and go to the bathroom. While he was in there, she'd gather up her duvet and go lie on the floor in her parents' bedroom on her mum's side of the bed. Her dad would check to see if she was in her room when he came out of the bathroom, find she wasn't and then go to bed knowing he and his wife were not alone. This had gone on for two years.

Can you imagine?

Anyway, her subc was prepared to give it all up. Despite that, I was pretty sure nothing had worked and when she and her mum came back today (10 days later) I was expecting to go back to her subc and ask why she hadn't done what she said she would. Mum and patient arrived, I brought them in and asked mum, "Has anything changed?"

"I think N~~~~~ should tell you."

"Well, N~~~~~, has anything changed?"

"I slept nine straight nights in my bed without a problem. Last night I had a blip but I wasn't sleepy."

"Cool," I said, trying to hide the extent to which my gob was smacked. "What about burglars?"

"What about them?"

"Fire?"

"Yeah?"

"Gangsters?"

"Where I live?"

I discovered later that the family had gone out for dinner on the evening of S1, and N~~~~~ had spent the time giving her dad (a health care professional of A-Grade order, and sceptic) a lecture on hypnosis and the workings of the subc. Her mum said it was like she'd soaked it up like a sponge.

S2 was just conslidation. No more blips. And then I (pardon the expression) gave her mum a quickie for eating control becasue we had so much free time.

Sometimes ...

Best wishes

barry