Hi all,

Am working succesfully with a lady who has had eating issues for most of her life. In just one session we have lifted her depression and the urge to eat is less.

We now need to work on the feeling she has that food feels dirty in her stomach. I have an idea of what I will do and she is very willing to apply the same process I used for her feeling of depression, but I just wanted to gain some more perspectives, either from those that have worked with similar cases or who have overcome this 'food is dirty' thing before.

Many thanks
Nina

Nina,

I'd like to respond again with a suggestion that I made on a previous thread.

I think that for many people, appreciation of food causes less objectification, which I think could be an issue for people with food disorders (in other words, their perception of food is distorted). If people battling eating disorders were taught to prepare everything they eat from "scratch," getting to know all of the ingredients, perhaps the attitude towards food would shift towards something more positive.

If I encounter a person, for instance, with whom I experience opposition, or a negative interaction, I can often shift my perception of them by getting to know them better, and understanding their point of view...with that increased understanding can come an increase in appreciation, and appreciation for my relationship with them...

Thank you Nigel for your comments.

I think that I will have to work on the negative feeling anchor of the food in her stomach though, which I will do with her.

I have a feeling it's more complicated than just appreciating food, as she knows intellectually that food is good and that she needs it to survive etc.

So looking for deeper insights as to how negative anchor may have been installed -possibly mother's attitide as her Dad seems to be a very positive role model for her.

I feel that her mother may have something to do with it.

I think you're right.

Mothers can have a huge impact on the way we feel about food.

For example. An overweight mother can leave a child/adult trying desperately to avoid repeating the mistakes and health issues. And as we know, avoidance doesn't work.

An exceptionally slim mother can leave a child/adult feeling that they haven't lived up to what was expected of them. A failure.

Exploring this and giving her the tools to change her perceptions emotially and allowing her to emotionally know that it's ok to eat is the way forward. She needs to remain able to make conscious choice about what to eat and that nothing is dirty. So she can choose to eat healthy food and if she wants something high in fat and sugar occassionally then that's ok too.

Hope that helps.

virtualAngel wrote:

Thank you Nigel for your comments.

uh...I like Nigel a LOT, and our last name is the same...but I'm Phil!

Nina, I believe that what I'm suggesting might change her attitude about food. I'm wondering...have you asked her about what she eats, how she prepares it, and how it's consumed? I hear what you are saying about her intellectual understanding of the goodness of food.

For most of us, we don't think too much about those things, but then again, we don't think food feels dirty when it is in our stomachs, do we?

So, I would not be surprised, if when you ask her questions about how she shops for food, prepares food, and consumes it, her answers would reveal patterns which could be changed that would have a profound effect on how she feels about food when she eats it, and help her to change her emotional response to one that is more healthy.

I do not doubt that her feelings about food have been shaped by her family dynamic growing up. That's often a given, now isn't it?

And, I could be completely wrong, or perhaps there is some crucial deletion of information in your posts that would help me to better understand...

Setting metaphorical homeworks can be very powerful if well designed to fit the solution. I have done some skype 'trouble shooting' sessions where I simply give people some homework task to do and no hypnosis/NLP at all. Even though one was adamant that she would have to stop 'freaking out' before she would get what she wanted, she was very surprised when she didn't 'freak out' and felt different in the same situation (the problematic one). She didn't understand at all why it worked consciously. She said she hated every minute of the home work too but did it anyway luckily. It is important to not explain the homework so they can't rationalize it away. Well designed in my opinion is cryptic enough to stop analysis but not so cryptic that the unconscious can't see a pattern. Obviously they must actually do it so don't use ones that may induce danger or fear.

Remember Erickson's 'get out of the car ever 100 yards and lie in the ditch' homework story?

[quote=pcadams;46077]uh...I like Nigel a LOT, and our last name is the same...but I'm Phil!

quote]


LOL... I am sooo sorry Phil, please accept my aplogies ehehe

Yes I like Nigel too [waves hello to Nigel]


Thanks again for comments again.

she wrote:

I think you're right.

Mothers can have a huge impact on the way we feel about food.

For example. An overweight mother can leave a child/adult trying desperately to avoid repeating the mistakes and health issues. And as we know, avoidance doesn't work.

An exceptionally slim mother can leave a child/adult feeling that they haven't lived up to what was expected of them. A failure.

Exploring this and giving her the tools to change her perceptions emotially and allowing her to emotionally know that it's ok to eat is the way forward. She needs to remain able to make conscious choice about what to eat and that nothing is dirty. So she can choose to eat healthy food and if she wants something high in fat and sugar occassionally then that's ok too.

Hope that helps.

This is wonderful Sheila, thank you!

I think I will ask about it, if it feels right to do so...then take her to the emotional feeling and take it from there.

Phil - I do have to be very careful when talking about food for example, I asked her what foods she eats and she sticks with the foods she feels 'safe' with -bread, mango, apples and pairs. I asked her about quantity and she says its cereal bowl size... I feel that food is just the symptom of the much deeper issues that Sheila has spoken about.

The direction we need to take her in is to be able to get her digestive system working properly again, as she does not allow food to stay in her stomach long enough to be processed [due to dirty feeling of food in tummy], so it has become 'lazy' as she calls it.

I asked her that if we could eliminated the dirty feeling in tummy feeling would she be able to allow food to stay in her tummy to be processed by digestive system and she said yes. So hopefully making this one change will make all the difference.

Thanks again for your advice, its all going in the pot

Best wishes
Nina

Nina,

Thanks for giving more information. What you are saying makes sooooooo much more sense now!

I'll keep thinking, and see what I can come up with to add to this delicious stew (pardon the pun!).

Phil