My dad has had Parkinsons for about 16 years and been pretty healthy in spite of this. A year or so ago he started to hallucinate quite badly.

Anyway the consultant pretty much told him that nothing could now be done for him a while back and for the past month or so he has had really strong hallucinations most of the time. I remember Richard Bandler talking about a case (different illness) where the psychiatrist got the guy to put a black line around the real images to differentiate from the imagined. I’ve concentrated with suggestions about telling the difference and being able to forget about the imagined images. Not had much of an effect and I wondered if a “grown up” NLPer/hypnotherapist may be able to help more?

I’m not expecting a cure per-se as the problem is caused by a chemical imbalance but I would hope that he may be able to at least learn to ignore the hallucinations more often and improve his situation?

I wondered if someone on the site who is skilled in this area would be interested in trying to make a difference here on personal sessions with my dad?

I don't ever believe in giving up, especially when a very respected clinician says that nothing more can be one with traditional medicine ..

Hi,

Have you watched the 'Marshal University Tape' of Bandler and Andy the schizophrenic?

If a person is already hallucinating - the question that arises is how would you teach them to distinguish between their outside reality and inner reality when these two have already got merged, fused and blended?

So you would need a way to get inside their inner reality and then work your way out to teach them from the inside.

Another thing to take care of is that when the person learns to distinguish - if the learning was done during the influence of pharmaceutical drugs, then the person would probably need to relearn after coming out of the influence of these drugs. A lot of these learnings are state and context dependent learnings.

Best Regards,

- Anil

It may also be that there is an organic component to the hallucinations, one of the first things that Bandler would check out. Before now, he says he has come across situations where the presence of a foreign body in the head causes hallucinations. Whether Parkinsons itself 'unavoidably' (?) leads to hallucinations, I couldn't tell you.

Hi John,

john.oneill wrote:

My dad has had Parkinsons for about 16 years and been pretty healthy in spite of this. A year or so ago he started to hallucinate quite badly.

Anyway the consultant pretty much told him that nothing could now be done for him a while back and for the past month or so he has had really strong hallucinations most of the time. I remember Richard Bandler talking about a case (different illness) where the psychiatrist got the guy to put a black line around the real images to differentiate from the imagined. I’ve concentrated with suggestions about telling the difference and being able to forget about the imagined images. Not had much of an effect and I wondered if a “grown up” NLPer/hypnotherapist may be able to help more?
..

I think you describe a very interesting and potentially complicated problem, from a reader's point of view, and I should state from the outset that I am not in a position to help directly in terms of any face to face interaction.

I don't ever believe in giving up, especially when a very respected clinician says that nothing more can be one with traditional medicine ..

I totally respect that position, and guess you want only the best for your father, and family. I would therefore suggest you contact Andrew Austin, NLPC member with a background in neurology directly for advice just in case he misses your OP.

If you want to pursue this on the public forum I would be interested in the following, all of which I think should have been part of your father's consultation, but unless you were present, I would not take it for granted, either in terms of questions asked, or perhaps your father's ability to communicate well on that day when told that there was nothing that can be done in the context of the medical model.

It is likely that the medication he has been on the last 16 years has been effectively stimulating his dopamine (D2 receptor) neurology. What is that medication, and how old is he now ? Some medicines used to treat Parkinson's is known to promote hallucinations.

It is possible that he is no longer metabolizing the same medication so well and that has led to an increase in dopamine stimulation that in turn leads to a vulnerability to hallucination as per the biological psychiatry model. In which case a dose reduction of his anti-Parkinsonian meds might be the simple answer. Has he gone onto, or stopped any other medication in the last year ? Anything herbal or over the counter from a pharmacy etc that may effect the metabolism of his routine drugs ?

Typically antipsychotic medication serves to inhibit D2 receptor activity, and may affect his Parkinsons rather badly anyway as there is clearly a conflict there in terms of desired effects.

There is a chance that there is now the additional ingredient of Lewy Bodies sometimes associated with Parkinsons and hallucination that might severely contraindicate the use of antipsychotic traditional medication as I believe Lewy Bodies sensitize the patient to the most extreme and dangerous side effects of these medicines, hence the "there's nothing to be done" position. See Wiki or google for starters,

Lewy body - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't know. There is not enough content in your OP to indicate whether or not your father's condition is best assessed by a consultant neurologist or psychiatrist. I would seek to go through your father's GP to arrange that rare beast of a joint consultation with both experts present, who can jostle with eachother for the most expert opinion out of which something useful may emerge. In a fragmented and compartmentalized NHS there is a real danger that the two opinions might otherwise never meet directly.

I mention this as I think Adrian R is right to highlight the relevance of possible organic or biological origins. If the origin were to be biological, the impact of psycholgical interventions may be limited. Then again, that might just be my gloomy world view talking. However, any private NLP practitioner in your father's area should I think be seeking better definition of these criteria, and no doubt others not yet highlighted before offering to help.

Having said that, if biological origins can be eliminated, maybe a skilled practitioner can identify submodality structures that are distinct between consensus reality and ideosyncratic hallucinated realities and help your father put either one to one side, for example (see what I did there) to promote his chances of retaining a glimpse of the norm.

FWIW I strongly recommend that he takes his medication as prescribed, and that any changes are made following recommendation and under medical supervision. Please do not use my speculation other than to gather or possibly exchange more information.

Keep us posted if you will,

Regards

MH

Hi John my mother has had Parkinson's for 14yrs now she takes 20 tablets every day, she also started to hallucinate. It was one of the tablets that was causing the hullucinations, she was taken into hospital while they reviewed her medication and im pleased to say the hallucinations have stopped. Sinemet is one of the meds that has this side effect