Re: Writer's cramp

The case information you provide only pin-point the physical aspect of an isolated symptom. As a result, it is not likely that any course of action can be suggested that will be particular to this unique individual. Remember that the Ericksonian approach is not about symptom suppression or removal but rather about supplying the resources needed in a given context. When a person lacks those resources substituted behaviors are used instead (and these are the symptoms or become symptoms over time).

If the boy speaks openly, you would be best advised to discover the context of his situation when the symptom developed and emerged. Then help him, perhaps with hypnosis, to organize more appropriate coping responses to the demands and stresses of that situation. When he is satisfied that those experiential resources would have sufficed him, ask him to use his concentration in hypnosis to revisit the memories of several of the most outstanding moments during which he experienced the problem. While doing so, he needs to make association to the created resources, imagine feeling and using the experiences successfully, and effortlessly. Finally, he needs to rehearse several imagined future situations in the same manner.

However, you must assess the boy beyond this symptom to best determine what the needed experiences really are for HIM. Is he tensing up due to expressing himself in writing? What for? Is he resisting making a commitment? Does it mean something else to him? Is it like his dad signing divorce papers? etc. etc. Only then can the two of you truly resolve the habit quickly.

Finally, if this has become an independent habit over the last year, you will most likely have to help him interrupt the bits of it and relax and feel joy.

Replies:

Re: Writer's cramp, by Celso Lugão da Veiga, 11/24/99

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