“I know it like the back of my hand,” people say. To me, the expression has
always seemed odd. I mean, how many people can actually tell you what the
back of their hand looks like? I can’t. But then, I can hardly bear to look.
And if I were forced to for too long, I’d faint.
I hate all those bulgy veins. I hate thinking about anything to do with my
blood flow. And the thing I hate most of all is a blood test. From the
moment the tourniquet is strapped on to my arm, I have less than a minute
before I collapse.
It’s been a problem for as long as I can remember. When I was 5, I fainted
after cutting my finger as I opened a Weetabix packet. Actually, I passed
out at the slightest provocation: in school assemblies; after an injection;
when I thought I’d found a varicose vain; and while a woman at a party was
telling me about her blood-clotting problems. The reason I suspect that a
benign God could exist is because I’ve never had haemorrhoids. I don’t feel
I could survive a bleeding bottom.
I realise it’s all in the mind. “Try not to think about it,” people say. But
how can I help it? A few months ago I had to go for a blood test. My teeth
were chattering as I pushed open the door to the doctor’s surgery. I was
half-crying, half-laughing with hysteria as I tried to explain to the nurse
that I had a problem. When she told me that she, too, had a problem — that
if I fidgeted she wouldn’t find the vein — I knew there was no hope. Of
course, I passed out. And when I came round feeling sick, the doctor had
been summoned. He was thumping on my chest. An ambulance had been called
because apparently I had forgotten about breathing. But I felt fine — after
a bit — or at least I did until they told me that they still hadn’t taken
the blood.
“You should try hypnotherapy,” a friend suggested. He recommended David
Samson. And I went along to his West End clinic where he offers a first
consultation free of charge. There are two principle forms of hypnotherapy,
he explained. The first is “suggestion” in which, under hypnosis, the
patient is assured that he is no longer going to worry. But, as Samson puts
it, this merely blankets the problem. He practises “regression” hypnotherapy
instead. In this form, the hypnotised patient returns to the root cause of
the problem: to some forgotten childhood incident most probably which, too
difficult to deal with at the time, was filed away in the unconscious.
Samson deals with anything from run-of-the-mill problems such as smoking or
insomnia to the sort of outlandish phobias that make my own seem positively
mundane. One of his patients had a fear of the letter V, he told me — some
weird correlative of a terror of vomiting, apparently. Another was a pilot
who had developed a phobia of flying.
“I am a complete sceptic,” I told Samson. “Great,” he said. “I like sceptics;
they are always so much more surprised at the end.” He can’t say what his
success rate is — success comes in differing degrees. And, of course, there
are people who cannot be hypnotised, something like 5 per cent. But, for me,
hope came in the form of a letter from a previous client with a problem
similar to mine. He realised that it stemmed from an incident that had taken
place when he was 4 years old: he had seen his mother’s Tampax in the loo
and thought that it was part of her body. Since this realisation he had been
able to laugh off his fear.
I went for three treatments, each lasting an hour and each costing £115. I was
certainly wanting it to work at that price. But the experience wasn’t at all
the watch-the-little-object type scenario that I’d seen in the movies.
Samson had very shiny eyes, but that was probably more to do with his
spectacles than his mystic powers.
The first session simply involved relaxation exercises which, once I had got
over the urge to giggle because it sounded so hammy, seemed to work. In
fact, when I reached it, I recognised the relaxed state I used to go into
when I swam to the bed of the river and, holding a strand of weed to anchor
me, would lie at the bottom for longer than anyone else; so long,
occasionally, that the others would panic and come flapping down to find me.
Many people have that ability, Samson told me. They can slow down their
heartbeat until they barely need to breathe.
At home I practised by listening to a CD, an exercise that involved imagining
a warm orange liquid sloshing about in my body. It was obviously effective
because half the time I’d fall asleep before the recording had even ended.
In the next session I had to imagine that I was taking a lift down into the
deep basement of my unconscious. I trotted about amid childhood memories.
But I felt completely awake. Samson kept chatting away chummily to my
subconscious. I obliged with the required answers, but they seemed to come
from a suspiciously alert part of my head. He seemed satisfied, however, and
we continued in much the same way on my last visit.
Unfortunately, there were no momentous revelations. Apart from an oddly vivid
feeling about the damp little holes that frogs hide in that I had never
thought about before, I could tell him only what I had always known, about
how, when I was little, my father had used to grip me round the wrists when
I was being cheeky. “Look at your hands. They’re turning blue. The blood is
stopping,” he’d say. In retrospect, it probably sounds rather brutal but it
was only a game. He just didn’t know when to stop.
I have to say, I thought the hypnosis hadn’t worked. But, strangely, somehow,
somewhere, something small seems to have shifted. I can think about veins
without immediate hand-flapping panic. I had two blood tests last week
without a problem. And as I write this article, I am looking (though not too
hard or too long) at the back of my hands. They are not that interesting.
WHAT IS IT?
HYPNOSIS is a state of enhanced relaxation in which the
deeper parts of the mind become more accessible.
SUITABLE FOR overcoming phobias, such as being scared of
insects or rodents.
COST It varies according to area but starts from £60 for 50
minutes. The initial consultation with David Samson is free, thereafter he
charges £125 an hour.
CONTACT David Samson practises in Harley Street, W1, and Mill
Hill, NW7 (0800 6340512; www.avantihypnotherapy.com). To find a practitioner
contact the British Hypnotherapy Association; 020-7723 4443,
www.hypnotherapy-association.org
WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE?
Does hypnosis work? There is considerable evidence that
hypnosis is effective in treating many anxiety-related conditions, including
pain and migraine, as well as anxiety about procedures such as blood tests
and injections.
How does it work? Pierre Ranville, at the University of
Toronto, looked at the areas of the brain that are activated by hypnosis in
a paper published in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2002. Hypnotic states may
diminish anxiety while also improving blood flow to the areas of brain that
are responsible for attention and concentration. This means hypnosis may
make it easier to overcome anxiety and other conditions that may be
aggravated by anxiety, such as phobias and obsessional tendencies.
Dr George Lewith is head of the complementary medicine research unit,
Southampton Medical School
