Case study Simone
(with permission of Simone)
Hypnotherapist: Ina Oostrom
Authors: Gerald F.Kein and Beryl Conmar –
From the book Hypnodontics
Fear for root canal treatment
On Saturday, October 11, 2009, I was asked for an emergency session with a client who had an extreme fear of the dentist.
She was due for root canal treatment the following Thursday.
In previous visits to the dentist, she had a fear of drilling, her eyes were bothered by the local anesthesia and she had to gag.
Her last root canal treatment had caused such intense anxiety in her that she had been unable to control her bowels.
It seemed almost impossible for her to go to the dentist that Thursday.
Extreme anxiety
When extreme anxiety is present, it is important to identify the cause of that anxiety and give the client a new perspective.
Therefore, in this case, regression to the cause was important.
Basically, in regression we use anxiety to let the subconscious mind figure out for itself when that anxiety started.
In Simone’s case, we followed the fear back to a situation where she was five years old.
The first step in the regression took her to a situation where she was 35 years old.
Simone was gagging while the dentist was drilling.
Then she relived a moment where she was 34 years old and she was getting root canal treatment.
The next thing she revealed was a moment where she was 16 years old and the dentist was mad at her for not brushing her teeth well enough.
Even further back in time we came to a moment when she was 13 years old and the dentist was drilling.
She had to gag.
Tootache at seven years
One of the most difficult moments was at age seven when she had a toothache.
She was very scared and did not cooperate with the dentist who became so angry that he slapped her in the face.
These were all situations associated with visits to the dentist.
However, the surprise came in the final stage of regression.
There was another important situation connected with this extraordinary fear.
This last situation revealed that at the age of five, Simone had to leave her home and family to live in a children’s home.
Her father and mother were unable to care for her due to physical problems.
She was very scared.
What we had to find out was how the fear of the dentist was connected to the fear of leaving home.
It turned out that the underlying fear was the cause of her not being able to control the situation in all these situations.
To address this fear, I had to have her relive the situation, but from a new perspective.
That of: “if I had known then what I know now.”
New perception on the event
Basically, this means that while in hypnosis, the client is experiencing the event from a new perception.
This is reinforced with Inner Child Work, a technique aimed at building and/or strengthening self-confidence. After this, I taught her the use of self-hypnosis so that when she went to the dentist she could control herself.
Five days later she went to the dentist and was able to go through the treatment without any problems and without pain.
She gave me the following descriptions of her experience: 2009 “I have now gone through several treatments at the dentist and the paradontologist. I can’t say other than that with the root canal treatments I was really gone. I was even able to do the treatments at the paradontologist without anesthesia. I was very calm and could control myself well. There were of course the normal nerves you have when you go to the dentist, but I am no longer afraid. The last treatment was two weeks ago and I was totally out of it. It was over before I knew it. It means a lot to me that now, thanks to your help, I can apply this at the dentist. In fact, I can’t thank you enough for it. I also commend it to the dentist. I can recommend it to everyone to start learning this. You don’t know what you are experiencing.”
Simone 2011 “I went for two crowns a few weeks ago. Again, I went into this quietly, thinking that I now have it 100% under control. The dentist knows that I possibly do hypnosis and also knows what to do. He indicates on demand what he is doing and that immediately gives a lot of peace of mind. Because I now know what I can do, I’m doing a lot better.”