I run a Hypnotherapy/NLP business from home. I love to work with fears and phobias. I like to teach people how to unwind and de-stress. I am a great believer in the power of meditation to clear the mind and empower thinking.

Has anyone worked with the above problem ? I have a lady who cannot help spending hours looking in the mirror. No Joke ! It is stopping her from working. Any advice would be appreciated. Ta !

Hey Lynne, welcome to the forum. It sounds like you have a business you enjoy and do good with, so congratulations!

If this particular client is likely to be a challenge and you're not yet sure how to help, have you considered referring her to someone else? You could maybe sit in on the session, so you can learn from it too? I find that's a good idea sometimes. The forum can be a great resource for picking up ideas and, at the same time, each client session is unique. We don't know what this lady is going to be like or how she will respond to ideas, so it's tricky to give meaningful advice on what would or even might be useful for her. So much of NLP is about calibration and exploring what works.

I can recommend these trainings by Michael Perez and Gabe Guerrero if you want to learn more about applying NLP to therapy/changework.

You'll also find general info on obsessions and compulsions on the site. Click here to search the archive and maybe others will post ideas below too.

I wonder why she does that? In other words, What's in it for her?

Venus

Hello Daisy,

Long before nlp came along, there were other forms of therapy, some of them quite intelligent and useful.

The symptom of prolonged mirror looking is not, in my experience, obsessive behaviour. It can be a "search for my identity".

This has been described in the work of various authors, including Winnicott and Fairburn, as the issue of being and becoming a person in the eyes of another - in the first instance, with the mother and with other grown-ups in the first year of life.

You'll find accounts of this kind of process in the works of the two therapists mentioned, especially Winnicott, and also in: All My Children by Jacqui Lee Schiff, who "re-parented" young adult schizophrenics.

One of the features I remember from my time at Cathexis Institute (which Jacqui set up) is that, when a young adult schizophrenic was going through "re-parenting" - that is, various stages of re-enacted-but-very-real early-child development - with their "new parent", they would often want to be held by their new parent, and would look in their new parent's eyes for hours and hours.

They were finding out, therapeutically, what it was like to have an identity, to be important, to have "presence for another" - a process which happens quite normally with healthy mother-child interaction, but which is missing in the history of some patients.

It may well be that your client or patient has something of this issue (altho I would add right away that there is nothing in what you tell us which suggests your client is schizophrenic; you've simply given us the bare bones of the presenting problem). If the identity issue is prominent, I can only echo my friend and colleague, Chris Morris: if you're not sure you can handle it, find someone who has some experience in this area, and refer.

In my experience, issues of identity are not as simple as, for example, Robert Dilts glibly suggests. In other words, there isn't an nlp quick fix.

Being presented with a client like this raises the issue of whether you, the therapist, wish to, are time-and-space able to, are physically able to, and are trained to, become a "new parent" for this patient/ client. I have done it myself on one or two occasions, and it's a lot of work. It is also ultimately very rewarding - to be able to turn around someone's whole life.

But as I said, it does take a lot of work.

Best wishes,

Eric.

Hi Daisy,

I'll agree with Eric that the behaviour you describe could well be what he suggests and could also well be effectively treated in the manner he suggests.

And the combinations of OCD behaviours accompanied by long stretches of mirror gazing, if combined with a client's dislike of their appearance or some aspect of their appearance, could also imply a set of behaviours that are referred to as Body Dysmorphic Disorder or BDD.

There as well there are issues of identity and specific self-induced trance states with accompanying positive and negative hallucinations involved in the mix.

And, again, it's the sort of case that I personally suggest referring on to someone with a successful track record with such things. And, as Chris suggests, you can learn a lot about the process of watching another changeworker or therapist work with the client which will give you access to greater resources should you ever run into the same or similar circumstances in the future.

And keep in mind that I'm not suggesting that either Eric or I are correct in our suggestions as to what the case might be. I'm going to guess that Eric would agree with me that we'd need to have an experience of the client to know more. But from what you say, there's a good likelihood that it's not something a pure NLP Prac/Master Prac toolbox is likely to be the equal of.

Just my experience, for what it's worth.

I wish you and your client all success.

Be Well,

Michael Perez

Hi Daisy,

This sounds like a fascinating client referring is one suggestion, but experimenting is another sounds like an opportunity to learn.

I wonder what's going through her head when she gazes into the mirror? Have you asked her?

Echoing Michael here... it's really difficult to make any kind of diagnosis of what is happening for the client unless I can understand what is going on in her world, when she is gazing in the mirror and based on the brief description I can only make educated guesses and do a little mind reading.

My two pennies worth is also a guess and a generalisation but I bet she has a lot of internal dialogue going on and not all of it conscious.

It may be something as simple as not having a strategy for stopping gazing. The good old TOTE model she may be doing test operate, test operate, test operate, until she gets to the right stress or boredom level and then does the test, exit....

This is teaching you to suck eggs but I would ask her how does she know when to stop gazing? Elicit it, Anchor it, and fire it off when she starts gazing.... I am sure that you have already tried this out.

What has she done to help herself, I mean has she removed all the mirrors from her house?

If she walks along the street and sees a mirror does she stop and stare for hours?

If you are talking to her and then hold up a hand mirror will she go into a trance and fixate on the mirror?

Who diagnosed her as obsessive compulsive? How much therapy has she had?

I am gonna stop here I have too many questions and feel a bit OC myself.

Good luck..

Jason

Gee thanks, such a lot of material ! I am very grateful for your replies and help. Please ignore the additional message I have sent you, just my little mistake, navigating myself around the site ! Daisy

Wooww! What about listening to story from the first person?

I have suffering from BDD for years. I have had all symptoms you mentioned. stuck with Mirrors, social phobia, OCD and perfectionism and procrastination, disassociation, auditory digital, introverted, low self-esteem etc.

My story is that I had spots on my face and the other part of the body since I know myself. I remember,In primary and secondory school, my friends made fun with me related to spots. (I realized childrens are mostly cruel to each other). It got bigger in time, and turned into a nightmare.

I could not to talk to anyone anymore. no eye contact, head towards to ground to hide my face, quick answer which was considered funny by the listener. Mass Transportation was my hell...I believed that my right side of my face is the worst as it have most of spots...So I always tried to keep the others in my left while talking or sitting on the metro etc....Finally, thinking of I had had enough, I had an operation (as in Nip/Tuck to get rid of the spots in 15 years old. Some of them was removed but the others remained and lasted growing so I had two operations too. These made me relief a little bit but it still was working...
This is too long story, I can count the symptoms to you for hours. If you wonder special details I can reply to your questions...

But now, rather, I need your help about knowing the SOURCE OF THIS. Because I have been looking for the REAL REASON for years. This caused me to met NLP...I got master practitioner training but I am stuck with full of details and never give a chance to myself to try any technique up to now. Bec. I cant do techniques on myself because whenever I try to ask myself something (like colour, sounds of experience, or any comparision), I get confused, anxious and the result is dissappoitment about me. not to have this feeling, I give up trying any technique on myself even asking...

So, as you see , problem about organization of thinking and presenting is one of the sypmtomps...PLS COULD YOU HELP ME TO FIND OUT THE MAIN REASON (and of course SOLUTIONS)...Because it seems I wont be able to relief unless i get the right answer after many years passing by searching...

Thank you.
Kayser

The strategy that generates the obsessing and compulsing in the first place for many people, involves the non-acceptance of insecurity, fallibility, and humanity. Refuse to know and accept yourself as a fallible human being, and you begin to disorder yourself for insecurity and protective moves.
They feel the demands that they "do" and "be" right. Permission has been taken away from them to be "wrong", imperfect and human. If they identify their self as totally a product of their actions, looks, emotions, thoughts, etc. they thereby are never allowed to feel safe as a human being in all their wondrous fallibilities.
Reordering this structure involves bringing acceptance to one's self. It involves accepting and esteeming one's self unconditionally. " I give myself permission to accept my insecurity, fallibilities and imperfections and mistakes."

Some suggestions would be to assist them to quality control their lives. Run ecology check by asking"Do you like this feeling of having to look into the mirror for many hours a day? " How much does this mirror looking behavior enhance your life and enable you to achieve the things you want to anchieve?" Once client gives commitment about this, set the frame to try something new and different.
Then you might or might not want to use Meta-State pattern for Self-Acceptance and Self- Acceptance, Swish Pattern to "the me for whom being fallible is no problem, " and reframing the meaning of insecurity.

Since there might be a lot of fuzzy concepts and the modal of necessity involved you could coach and educate clients about such by meta-modeling. This involves challenging and disputing the old either/or thinking so that the client can use their brains to think in terms of steps, degrees and stages.
If their is a All-or Nothing thinking pattern, they could learn to chunk things down into smaller more manageable pieces.
You could give client the task to do three mistakes every day and noticing the thoughts and emotions that emerge. The internal critical voices that keep taking permission away and that demand perfection, could be changed (putting volume down, Mickey mouse etc.) and the voices could be integrated as legitimate parts with positive intentions.


Thought this could help. Typed it to use it for my clients.

Kayser, Thank you for writing. I am keen that you have also read the replies of the other people on this thread as their answers are very well-informed. I note that you ask for my help in finding the source. What area do you live in ? I am based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, so not sure whether you could reach me. Let me know how it is.

kind regards
Daisy

I would be really interested in what success you might have with this client (assuming s/he isn't already cured), if you use the Bandler compulsion technique. There is a very good video by Steve Andreas on Youtube which will show you most the technique (there are breaks and pauses), but you do need the description as well in order to understand the steps and what is going on but not explained in the video.

As I understand it, this ought to be effective with at least some OCD clients and I would be really interested in how it works for yours.

Good luck.

D

I'm new to this forum myself but I believe I have some constructive input.

If you haven't read the Sourcebook of Magic, by L. Michael Hall, it does concisely list many specific patterns for addressing many different kinds of problems.

One thing I haven't noticed in this thread is an direct statement of the fallacy of using such a diagnostic label as "OCD", because it brings with it a particular style of thinking that can be counterproductive. The spirit of NLP is to break away from the kind of thinking where a person has a disease, and recognize the differences in every individuals unique problem. Instead of thinking of it as an OCD problem, we must remember to think of it in terms of a behavior that is counterproductive outside its intended positive aim.

If I could take what I have learned in my studies of Milton Erickson, I think he would use that mirror-gazing behavior directly, as a pacing and trance induction. I am reminded of a man who had a problem with a frequent urge to empty his bladder, and it seems that Milton used primarily time distortion to show him how long he really could wait.

So if it were me, I would have a mirror in the room, and use it as a basis to induce trance, pacing her as she looks in the mirror, and leading the rest of her rep systems internal, while telling a story, perhaps the story of the man with the bladder control issue, and embedding commands to gradually distort time for her, more and more, so that she can gaze in the mirror for as long as she wants within the span of a minute or two.

Its one method of approach, anyway. A couple other books I would recommend for those who havent read them, Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton Erickson, by Bandler & Grinder, have a lot of case studies of Erickson's work that will help a lot in showing how he would deal with a wide variety of problems, they are old books, essentially the foundation of much of the later works about NLP, but the information is great. And another is My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson, edited by Sidney Rosen, which contains a wealth of Milton cases to inspire you.

Thank you for replying. I am very interested in obtaining the books you recommend. I worked with this client some time ago but it is still good to have your input.

Many thanks. daisy