Case Study 1: ‘Ed Orange’ – A Case Study of Anxiety and Depression
Case Presentation
Ed is a 35 year old family man who works full time. He was being treated by his General Practitioner for depression with anti-depressants and had recently just had his daily dosage doubled. Ed had been seeing a psychiatrist for over ten years.
Presenting Complaints
Ed was feeling very anxious/depressed when he referred himself to me. He had a secret debt which he had kept from his wife but who had recently just found out and was furious. Ed having been divorced once before and didn’t want to go through being left alone again, he loved his wife and their three children. He considered the whole situation as hopeless and had the belief that he was both worthless and useless. As a result he suffered from insomnia and was stressed from his workload at work.
Ed’s History
Ed’s ex-wife had run-off with the ‘Best Man’ from their wedding. He felt that not only had he lost his wife but had lost his best friend as well. Ed had been very ill with a heart condition when he was born and wasn’t expected to survive. His mother seemed to have detached herself in readiness and neglected her nurturing responsibilities as a mother. Ed had decided as a child that he must be worthless as his mother never supported him.
The Wound
There seemed to be a pattern. Ed had two wounds, main wound of being Rejection showing up as Panic Attacks, the fear of being pushed away. And Abandonment showing up as the fear of Solitude (left alone).
Coaching Plan
First we worked on his emotional state and brought down his anxious feelings to a manageable level using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). This would put him in a more resourceful state for clear thoughts to take place and could practice at home or when required.
Using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), we then looked at Ed’s negative thinking styles and found he had two: “extreme thinking” and “mind reading” and looked for alternative positive thoughts instead. Seeing the big picture of how his thoughts affect his emotions, which affect his behaviour he found enormously helpful.
CBT is a self hep treatment which focuses on changing how we feel now, a practical form of psychotherapy. It gives people the tools to make changes. Watch a short CBT information video below:
Ed began the process of un-learning unhelpful beliefs and learning to catch the negative thoughts as they occurred and after six weeks Ed is now FREE from antidepressants, is still happily married, sleeps well and as has more of a work-life balance. To his surprise his relationships with his children are noticeably better, he has more quality time to play and really be with them. His credit card debt was now under control and making large payments each month until the debt was paid off. He had a twinkle back in his eyes and a slide in his stride.
He’s now exploring new potential career paths that express who he really is and of course, always was.
“Johnathan has been a very strong influence in my life in past few months. I was depressed and could not see any way out of the dark depression. I had been to see my doctor who had put me on antidepressants and wanted me to see a psychologist, from past experiences I was reluctant to see a psychologist as I found it a very short term fix and unhelpful.
I went for my first session with Johnathan and found it to be such a positive and motivating session, I started seeing him on a weekly basses and grew stronger in myself week by week, the tools that Johnathan taught me to use have been excellent and have helped me to reduce my dosage of antidepressants with an aim of stopping them all together, which I did after six sessions with Johnathan.
The tools I have been given are not the short term fix I was avoiding but will remain with me for life and help me maintain the strength I have found within myself.” ~ Ed Orange
The wife to was happy, she bought me a bottle of champaign and gave me a big kiss and thanked me for saving their marriage. I think that’s the best testimonial I’ve ever recieved!
Case Study 2: ‘A Boy Aged Four’ – A Case Study of Feeling Sad
I had received a call from a young single mother who had a four year old son. At his school ‘kindergarten/reception’ class, her son was very shy and withdrawn but was willing to join in the practises for an up coming festival. But when it came to showing the parents their showcase, he wouldn’t perform in front of the mums and dads despite really wanting to, he would get frustrated then angry, which would then lead to some display of negative behaviour.
I decided to use Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) on the child and simply bypass thinking styles and challenging thoughts and beliefs etc.
EFT combines tapping on acupuncture points with words based on NLP.
He was able to tell me that he felt sad whenever he saw his mum in the audience. Curiously, I asked him what was he sad about when he sees his mum in the audience, he answered that he gets sad because she would leave again after the show.
I asked the mother where the father was and whether her son had been left alone in the past? The father had never been around much after the birth of their son, and the mother who worked as a make-up artist, had been offered work at the Opera House and gratefully accepted the job in order to move out of the tiny rented accommodation she had and get a mortgage for a home. The son at age two and a half years old, the mother then was offered a feature film contract but meant more crazy hours up to 70 hr weeks! So her son stayed with his grandmother while the mother went to work.
At this age, a child needs Love & Attention, which no doubt the grandmother was able to give to her grandson. But the son not understanding why he was dropped off, may have triggered a basic wounding of ‘abandonment’ perhaps feeling a little deserted. This can lead to the fear of being alone and would therefore cling onto his mother.
After tapping a mixture of ‘fear of being alone’ and ‘feeling really sad’, half an hour later we were done. We did the same again the following week for our second session.
One of the most beautiful things working with children is how quick the sessions are as they are very receptive and not argumentative as adults can be. By dealing with this now and making it fun, means he won’t have to deal with this particular wound in 20+ years time when his negative behaviours may have magnified to something much worse! He can now be his own healer and with his new evidence can form new empowering beliefs.
This is an email I received a week later after the second session from the mother:
“I took my 4 year old son to have EFT with Johnathan and have been utterly amazed at the results. After just a few days of ‘tapping’ he was no longer highly distressed when I dropped him at school but running in happy and carefree with barely a backward glance. He is starting to love playing at Kindergarten and is interacting a lot more with the friends he is making. A sight I have longed for and one that filled my heart with joy beyond words. The festival was a huge success, and he joined in with all of it and absolutely loved it. He had a huge smile on his face the whole time and kept waving. Very cute. He is so proud of himself and wanted me to let you know he had done it.
He immediately connected to Johnathan’s warm, gentle and compassionate approach and really enjoyed learning the tapping process.
After just two sessions with Johnathan he would tell me the emotion he wanted to tap and we would do it together at home as well…and in some slightly more extraordinary locations! We were at the top of a steep tunnel slide and he really wanted to go down but was too scared (he has always been scared of these slides and has only gone down one once before) He turned around to me and said, ‘come on Mama let’s tap the scared feeling away.’ After the first round of tapping he sat down at the top of the slide, after the second round he shuffled in about an inch, after the third.. a little more of a shuffle forward and after the fourth he started to giggle and said, ‘I don’t need to do any more tapping Mama, I can do this.’ He gave me a big smile and then after a slight hesitation…off he went…whizzing down the slide, whooping. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Absolutely incredible!
The part I like the most is how easy and effective it is for him to do; for him it has already become as normal as brushing his teeth! It is a good feeling to know he has a tool which will help him all through his life, should he need to use it. Something which will help him always be true to himself…not his fears. No matter how big or small. Thank you Johnathan, for teaching my beautiful son such a wonderful healing method with such warmth and understanding.” ~ T.M. Mother, Make-up artist and Yoga Teacher
As a follow on, the mother was so impressed by EFT that she went on to do the same training in EFT as I had, and further.
Case Study 3: ‘Jefferey Manning’ – A case study of Relationship Issues
Preliminary Background Case Presentation
Jefferey is a 37 year old single man who works full time. He had girlfriend called Carly for 3 years but had recently broken up with her, not through his own choice. Their relationship had become strained due to a number of factors.
Jefferey’s weight had increased and had Erectile Dysfunction (ED). He had gone to his General Practitioner who had diagnosed him that it was a physical condition caused by a lack of a balanced diet and exercise. Carly’s younger sister had recently got married, had a hockey ball hit into her front teeth and her aunt had died. Carly was feeling depressed about life.
Presenting Complaints
Jefferey was feeling sad when he referred himself to me, due to their run of bad luck over the last year. Carly had decided to end their relationship despite Jefferey taking self responsibility by loosing 11 kgs and taking magnesium that had been missing from his diet which had resolved his ED.
Carly after a holiday to reflect on life and their relationship, decided on returning home to end their relationship, feeling that Jefferey was still emotionally distant and therefore nothing had changed.
Jefferey loves his ex-girlfriend Carly and wanted her back. He felt slightly hopeless and worthless as he still wanted to remain in communication but not come across needy.
Jefferey’s early childhood experiences included the fear of being rejected. At age 8 his parents sent him to boarding school and dropped him off at school for the first time and he remembered wondering to himself, “Why have you left me?” This event and subsequent events later in life, including the breakup with a significant girlfriend at university, had led to the fear of being rejected by potential or current girlfriends. This has accumulated to strong beliefs about himself, such as a lack of self worth (too a lesser degree) and that its best not to open up emotionally to anyone because of the likely outcome of emotional pain with thoughts like, “I always get hurt when I really love someone”.
This belief has given rise to other behavioural problems including excessive social drinking to give him a lift and to be accepted. And other problems including his current relationship difficulties by withdrawing emotionally, which have led to feelings of sadness. When a relationship issue gets out of he’s control he would naturally feel sad and want to be alone, and so did Carly by getting more involved in her work. They both have the need for ‘love & connection’ but when they both withdrew from each other then neither of their needs were being met.
Jefferey recognises that being needy or manipulating the situation by giving the ex-girlfriend (Carly) gifts would only make the situation worse.
He also recognised that his original goal of ‘to get his girlfriend back’ was not realistic and accepted that they may or may not get back together but re-establishing ‘connection’ was a realistic outcome, which he very much wanted.
Jefferey may have two wounds, the wound of rejection shown by the fear of being pushed away and the fear of abandonment with the fear of being left alone.
Coaching Plan
First, we worked on the fear of being rejected using a NLP TimeLine technique on the issue of being left at age 8 at boarding school. He was able to see the positive intentions and strengths the event had actually given him: Being independent, resilient, a pillar of strength, always there for others, and making his own path in the world. We then used EFT on his feeling of sadness. On the SUD level he measured himself as a 6 out of 10 for sadness in that moment. After one round this was brought down to a manageable level of 3. This was an opportunity to see how Jefferey would respond to both NLP and EFT techniques and to serve him as practice to use at home on himself as required.
Using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), we then looked at Jeffery’s thinking styles and found he had three: “fortune telling”, “mind reading” and “feelings” and looked at alternative positive thoughts and asking what evidence did he have, that his negative thoughts were true. Seeing the big picture of how his thoughts affect his emotions, which then affect his behaviour, he found enormously helpful.
CBT is a self hep treatment which focuses on changing how we feel now, a practical form of psychotherapy. It gives people the tools to make changes in the moment.
Conclusion
Jeffery decided to give up being a player/coach for a hockey club and focus on self-development as he realised that he wanted to be in a committed loving relationship.
He’s happily married with a family and they now live in Canada.
He is a full member of the Association for Coaching (MAC), full member of the European and Mentoring Council (UK) and a professional member of the Association of NLP.
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