Obsessed

Successful Relationship Therapy Leon was recommended to Valerie by her favorite psychiatrist, who used to send her extraordinary patients. He had been madly in love with a girl but they had broken up well over a year before his visit. He was the son of a doctor, in his early twenties, good looking and with a lovely personality.

Thinking about her 90% of the time

His problem was that he couldn't get over his love affair and still had a fixation for the girl. It was so obsessive that he thought about her 90 per cent of the day. His mind went round and round with 'what ifs'; What if I had treated her better? What if I had curbed my jealousy? And so on.

Generally, such a trauma over a broken love affair should begin to clear in about six months, when the mind has begun to adjust. Having such an obsession for so long afterwards was causing Leon to become very depressed. He was on tranquillizers to enable him to get through the days.

Conflicting evidence

Leon said everything about the relationship had been fantastic, including the sex. However if Valerie told him he was lucky to have known someone so perfect, he would contradict his last statement and go into a lengthy description of her faults. If Valerie later mentioned even one of her faults, he would say how spectacular the relationship had been.

Valerie couldn't win with him - a sure sign of a confused mind. He was already in another relationship but this didn't disturb his obsession. Obviously, the new relationship was a wrong choice again, due to a confused mind.

5 per cent in 5 sessions

Fortunately, hypnosis was able to unscramble the mess and after five sessions he was only thinking about his previous love for about 5 per cent of the day.

Their time together had become distant memories, which he requested to melt away naturally, allowing him to get on with his life. Of course, it wasn't his relationship that was the problem at all. The real problem was, he was very messed up and needed to get his mind unscrambled, so he could attract the right person.

Valerie saw him a few years later. He was in a happy relationship and looked a different person, calm, confident and even better looking, with a new sophisticated attitude to life.