How to Transform your Fate into Healing Power? A Brief Curriculum Vitae

Early traumas

I was born in 1944, December, when World War II. broke into our house in Diósgyőr, North-Hungary. It is curious to think, however, I may have lived a definitive experience then. Soldiers had come in. My family had to be on the run. Like a president I could have enjoyed gunfire above my head.

Listening to my clients’ stories I often speculate upon an early traumatic experience if cause destructive effect only or not. What if its influence will be double: partly destructive, and, partly constructive in a way to be built into the personality as a script to form our fate. Probably, a special coping behavior pattern had become coded into my evolving body-mind connection in that shocking situation.

My father hesitated for years to come to my mother and me. His wife did not present him a child. I really do Opinion not know to think of or not, that if he does not need me I rather die. As a matter of fact, I had picked up two contagions as scarlet and measles at the same time, when I was 3. My mother used to tell me several times that I had had extreme high fever for three weeks. I had been near my end, when I was sent to hospital. At the time my father and me connected by a blood oath: I got my father’s blood via perfusion, and gradually got well. From that time on there was no question for him, where his family was.

Case-Vignette

Should an example my own failure as a psychotherapist. A girl, 17, suffered from panic attacks asked for psychotherapy. During the first interview the mother was also present. When the patient was 12, her parents divorced after very serious conflicts including grievous bodily injuries committed by her father against the mother for years. The patient has not been able to meet her father from that time on. I feel my situation to be analogous to her father’s. At the end of the first interview the patient’s mother asked me to face-to-face conversation. With a most reproachful glance she asked me if existing panick attacks still, what would be her daughter’s future fate? Suddenly, I felt anxious with unbearable oppression and tachycardia. I had a panick attack. Although I was not capable to understand the situation, I did not undertake the girl’s psychotherapy. Three days passed when I had a lucid dream, as if the girl and me were the same person. I knew that we had had similar fates. I saw us to look for our fathers in vain as a little child. I relived the divorce of the patient’s parents with extreme emotions and heartbreaking sobbing. After awakened I wondered the most, why I was indifferent and cool toward my early childhood traumas up to now, and, why I had felt anything never? It is an implicit memory characterised by vitality affects, bodily dyscomforts and compulsatory actions. This example exemplified the implicit memory of my attachment trauma revived by the behavior of the girl’s mother.

Stepping in the Patient’s World

15 years passed away, while I was investigating the problem-solving methods of this dilemma. As a matter of fact, the biological psychiatry prescribed neuroleptic medicines exclusively, in treating psychoses and severe personality disorders, declaring to use psychological treatment as wasting time, morever.

It happened in 1984 when starting hypnotherapy with a borderline male patient, despite the fact that I knew that Sándor Ferenczi had worked last with similar method in the era of 1930. Although the patient was exhausted by hypnotic experiences, however, he came enduringly to therapy, and recovered in two years. It can be regarded as a good enough result taken with the treatment with medicines last much more years. What happened the question is. According to my follow-up interpretation the patient relived in hypnosis the traumas resulted to break his personality development, in a symbolic way from prenatal period of his life. In the course of hypnotic process all of his rage, horror, desire and hope related to his parents became projected into my personality in order to be worked out. The process of therapy reminded me to Dante’s Divina Commedia, in which the author to go through Inferno was all along accompanied by Vergilius. After finished therapy it was published in English and German Journals. I was honored by Goldschmidt award in 1992 in Hungary. As a honorable mention Quintessenz Verlag of Munich requested a book, which was published with the title Hypnose bei Psychosen in 1993.

As a matter of fact, it was my previous expectation that this method would be competent to heal all of patients suffer from similar problems. I was investigating any further methods. In 1985 a young woman was sent to mental hospital because three days after childbirth she did not eat and speak anything and lay with no motion. I thought of some kind of aggressive therapy as antipsychotic injection but I supposed that her mental state would be more severe, since horror reflected from her eyes would be strenghtened due to a delusive conviction that she would be hurt. So I told her that I was understanding her not to speak at all since I was already in a similar situation, when I wanted to speak nothing. If she does not want to speak, she does not need to do so since she is able to communicate with her glance only. I suppose, I go on speaking, that she is very anxious now. However, she does not commit anything because of she has to feel guilt. In the moment she began to speak at all once, declaring that she was a guilty person as she did not suckle her newborn baby, For that reason she will be burnt away alive as a penalty.

An empathic contact was built in order that an acute psychotic person could have been motivated for accepting the treatment. That time I did not find any interpretation referring to that phenomenon in scientific literature. As to my conception a special hypnotic relationship came into existence between the patient and me, which was named as a ‘counter-trance’. When I hypnotise a waking person both of our states of consciousness will deepen from the waking state toward an altered state of consciousness. The patient’s state of consciousness will deepen gradually toward nocturnal dreams without reaching it, while my state will deepen just a little to relive the patient’s experience, who is in hypnosis. Contrary to this Counter- trance comes into existence, when the patient’s state of consciousness is already altered because of psychosis. If I want to establish a contact with him/her I need first deepen from the waking state to the level, when I can reach him/her, which as a counter-moving puts his/her state of consciousness in action toward the waking state. That is to say, states of our consciousness carry on some kind of counter-moving similarly to that situation, when a rescuer person dips just a little below near someone to reach a hand, who hurtled down into an abyss, that (s)he could be got out.

Although my studies convey good impression, and I have got my second Goldschmidt award, I was not satisfied since it was evident for me that this method per se was not able to heal. I suspected that in order that mental ‘abyss’ of a severely disturbed patient be healed it is not enough to reach it ‘here and now’ but ‘there in the past’.

Working Through Prenatal Traumas with Hypnosis

It was a slow process for me what means ‘there in the past’. Of course I learnt about fetal traumas of schizophrenic patients but I did not build this knowledge into my therapy methods. Once more a patient helped me to find a response. In 2003 a 26 years old female patient requested therapy. She hallucinated almost continously. I was on duty, when she came to me by the hour and asked me anxiously again and again, whether the water was poisoned. I told her that the water is clear she could drink it. She stated that her water certainly was poisoned. To hear this statement you think of her as an abnormal person, since if the water is clear how could be the water in her cup as poisoned. When she stated that forthly, suddenly I got into my mind that her mother had had a complicated pregnancy with toxicosis before she was born. In a word could she feel her water as poisoned for this reason? Since amniotic liquid had been poisoned. Immediately, I began a hypnosis with her in order that her comfortable fetal experiences be revived while her mother womb became purified from poison. We continued this type of therapy per week, and as a result she would be symptomless in three months. Unfortunately, I had a flu, I was lying on bed at home for weeks, while her psychotic state returned.

When I published my conception professionals were astonished since I stated no lesser than the mental patients could not be considered as ‘fool’, moreover, some of them told the truth but their bodies could only remember to the traumas they had suffered in fetal period since conscious memory began to work only in the age 3. In a word, the implicit and hidden bodily memory does not anchor to time. That is the reason why someone can relive such torment here and now, from which (s)he cannot suppose without any conscious memory to be experienced in past perfect. Now then! How could this idea be confirmed? Meanwhile, I have got „For Hungarian Hypnosis” award in 2008.

Mutually Reviving the Patient’s Past: Dynamic Tandem Hypnosis

Starting from my preceding experiences I raised an issue: what if a patient revived his/her being born in hypnosis in a setting, when either the real or a virtual mother would embrace him/her. Meanwhile, I as a hypnotizer keeping physical distance from both of them tell a hypnotic induction to help them to be attuned in each other. The method was named to Dynamic Tandem Hypnosis. The meaning of TANDEM, 1. a multi-seated bicycle; 2. an acronym: Touching Ancient & New Descendants Experiencing Mutuality. Noémi Császár- Nagy PhD helps me for evolving this method from the beginning.

Case-Vignette

Rebecca, 38, had an abortion during her first pregnancy but later gave birth to three children. On the night preceding her miscarriage she had a dream in which a black-hooded horseman was chasing her. She was running to escape but the horseman caught her, pulled a sack out of her body and threw it into the sky. Rebecca was born in the caul and she has lived within a „caul” of anxiety ever since her childhood. It was her daughter for whom she sought help. Her daughter, Cynthia, age 14, has been plucking her eyebrows and eyelashes for around a year, communicating gender identity problems this way. She was the oldest child, gifted and with ambitions of becoming a musician. She showed an interest in hypnosis and was keen on joining her mother to try it out. During a joint interview Rebecca reveals something Cynthia did not know. When expecting Cynthia, she was hospitalized for two weeks prior due date as the ultrasound examination was judged to indicate a small cranial size. The obstetrician therefore ordered to strengthen the nervous system with medication. As Cynthia didn’t take up the right position in the womb before birth, a difficult birth was expected and Caesarian section was applied. While listening to this story Cynthia is fiddling nervously on the sofa. I, as a therapist think that Rebecca and Cynthia could jointly re-experience pregnancy and birth, involving successful coping with the situation. My feelings suggest that Cynthia is ready to go ahead to experience the first THT (Transnatal Tandem Hypnotherapy) of her life. Turned on her side she is lying comfortably on the lap of her mother who is embracing her, and from that moment I can feel that it’s most natural for her to go back step by step in imagination to the fetal age, the earliest phase of her life. I could observe her intense experience. Answering my question of how she is feeling she whispers: „It is wonderful here.” Following my suggestions regarding healthy growing and the assuming of contact with the mother and her impending birth I tell them: „The obstetrician is going to say something which will strike you. Don’t worry about it, it’s not true, he is worrying without a reason. Believe me, you will not have any trouble, you are a healthy, beautiful and clever baby. You will soon be born and then you will show yourself to your parents and others and everybody will see that you are a healthy, clever and sweet baby.” Cynthia’s face turns a bit worried so I continue: ”You will signal your mother the onset of your birth; you possess the knowledge, you know how to move, how to pass through the birth canal.” At this point Rebecca joins me in saying: „Thank you Cynthia that you have chosen me to be your mother, and thank you for the wonderful nine months of you growing in my womb.” Cynthia starts crying and turns toward her mother who gives her a loving hug. It is me talking again saying that Cynthia knows when to start moving in order to be born. Cynthia slowly starts to move by making two rounds and a half with her body while Rebecca takes a position lying on her back. Cynthia is lying on her stomach facing her mother and lifts her head which has been bowed until now. At this point, I say: „Your head has emerged into the sunlight; Cynthia you have been born. You will be put on your mother’s chest and you will look into each other’s eyes, and you will know how much your mother loves you and that you love her, too.” Again, Cynthia starts sobbing and they give each other a close hug. Rebecca is crying, too. In Cynthia’s crying I sense a release of traumatic feelings. They are both deeply moved. When Cynthia asked tells that during hypnosis while coming back from infancy to the present, she entered her classroom and punched the boy who used to harass her at school at the time. Cynthia’s crying comes to an end gradually. The following week Rebecca reported that the plucking of eyelashes became less frequent, it occurred during times of stress only. Moreover, Cynthia began to look more confident. The hypnosis took place on a Saturday and the following Monday Cynthia told her mother that when the boy started teasing her at school she sent him packing to everyone’s surprise. Symbolic it was the „aggressive” gynecologist whom she sent packing, because it was his ominous prediction which, because of Rebecca’s worries, undermined Cynthia’s sense of physical integrity and thereby her self-concept. It is all the more possible because two weeks later Cynthia, who was the only girl in her class „not becoming a woman yet”, had her first menstrual period. Two months later she mutually fell in love with a boy even though she always kept romantic relationships far and wide away from herself. Six months after hypnosis Rebecca revealed it to the therapist that when Cynthia was born by Caesarian section she herself was in general anesthetics and after birth the baby was put on the chest of the father actually who took his shirt off to allow for a skin to skin contact. Thus Cynthia looked in her father’s eyes first. This might give a plausible explanation of their imprinting-like relationship. Cynthia followed her father everywhere, always sat next to him and so on. In the birthing experience of the THT session it was Rebecca and Cynthia who looked into the eyes of each other. Cynthia was sobbing while hugging her mother which resolved heavy feelings, and it is possible that this early imprinting with the father became overwritten. Two years after that single THT session Cynthia changed her secondary school to be able to reach her original goal of becoming a musician. She feels well without any symptoms. THT is viewed to have enhanced her sense of identity as a woman via resolving her self- depreciation caused by prenatal trauma. This case can serve as an example of how intergenerational traumas can be treated with THT, as Cynthia’s matrilineal line, including her grandmother and mother, suffered serious traumas which have been transmitted through generations.

Dynamic Tandem Hypnotherapy is not treated as a separate psychotherapy process by me. I think of it as a cathartic and catalytic method, can be used when an individual therapy process has come into a deadlock.

When I reported my first results of Dynamic Tandem Hypnotherapy the professionals were appalled. I did not got so much critics during my whole professional period, when one year in 2009. Then the new method has been gradually accepted. I have got the Mention of the President of Hungarian Society of Psychiatry, and the Clinical Creativity in Hypnotherapy award founded for this occasion by Hungarian Association of Hypnosis.