Intransigent or ‘Sticky’ Symptoms: Hypnotherapy and the Deconstruction of Ambivalence

Abstract

Previous work has shown that intransigent symptomatic behaviour can be seen as reflecting the conservation of an ambivalent autonomy in family systems. Such behaviour often implies, expresses, and even recursively conserves certain ambivalent meanings that in time have become central to and entrenched in the system. All members of the system either knowingly or unwittingly contribute to the maintenance of these ideas which then find expression in symptomatic behaviour. If treatment is aimed at the symptomatic behaviour itself it often encourages the conservation of the ambivalent ideas underlying the symptoms and the symptoms then also remain. This is when symptoms do not readily respond to treatment, when they become resistant or ‘sticky’. Seen in this light treatment should rather be aimed at the co-operative deconstruction of the entrenched meanings, helping them to transform into more functional, less ambivalent, understandings and actions. It is the aim in this paper to show by means of a case description how hypnosis and the meanings generally attributed to it can be employed, as part of psychotherapy, for this purpose. This involves the use of hypnosis to gain a co-created understanding or reframing of the ambivalent ideas while simultaneously being respectful of the symptom, followed by suggested actions coherent with this new understanding, leading to ‘spontaneous’ (hypnotic) disappearance of the symptom.