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- Patients with a simple form of obsession who are reasonable and
courageous may recover from their illness by following the advice based
on the above viewpoint. This recovery is due to a prompt plunging into
fear just as happens with panic attacks.
- For example, the treatment for a patient with blushing phobia who
cannot ride trains is that the patient is told to pluck up his courage
and get on the train boldly showing off his blushing to everyone, thus
forcing the patient into prompt action. By this method of treatment some
patients have overcome their longstanding fear of blushing in only a few
days. Looked at in one way, the method appears to be a kind of
punishment, boldly showing one's blushing in public. However, it takes
away the obsessive resistance.
- If the patient with an obsession always tries to resist his fears or
fix them, the fears will increase with increased suffering But this
obsession may be relieved by publicly revealing the blushing, for
example.
I once gave the following instructions to a patient who had
insomnia for many years, "Tonight you must go to bed with the idea that
you won't be able to sleep and so suffer throughout the night." However,
the patient was surprised to find himself quickly asleep. The patient
came to see me the following morning and thanked me for his first
successful experience of plunging into fear.
Earlier I had
experimented with the same patient in the following way. First, I told
him "Tonight, try to think of how to sleep soundly. Try to figure out
your best sleeping position for having a good night's sleep. Is it best
to lie on your back? |
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Consider the best position for your feet, the place in which your
arms rest, the relation between your pillow and head." However, with
those instructions he felt distress and could not possibly sleep that
night. The following day I said to the patient, "Tonight, make an effort
to stay sleepless all night in the same position in which you first lie
down. Don't try to improve your sleeping position even if the original
posture feels uncomfortable."
The following morning, the patient
visited me with a fully satisfied look, saying that he had slept soundly
that night, and understood well what good sleep was like. This shows
that the expectation and thinking of the patient and reality are in
opposition. This is the reason why I call it "a contradiction in
thinking".
- With such patients, specific therapy techniques are conducted for
different obsessions and different degrees of severity. At the proper
time, when the patient is feeling most distraught, the patient is urged
to plunge into the fear. Once a patient has had this genuine experience
other types of obsession are going to automatically vanish. The patient
knows that by taking the plunge, he or she can easily do what he or she
could not do in the past. The patient will feel pleased and will
gradually become more courageous. However, obsessive patients who don't
feel the joy and gratitude from this process will not have a complete
recovery, and weak-willed patients will never feel such joy.
Shoma Morita.
THE ESSENCE OF NERVOUSNESS AND
THERAPY.
Hakuyosha. |