This case involves a 19 year old male from the United States who was the victim of constant bullying all through his school years and was now having a difficult time coping with university life. He found he had almost no self esteem and was afraid to do things for fear of becoming a target of bullying again.
I was first contacted by his mother asking if there was anything that could be done with clinical hypnotherapy. He had already been to see a psychiatrist who prescribed anti anxiety and anti depressant medication for him. However it was not having the desired effect and his grades were suffering as a result. He had lost the ability to get motivated and his life for the most part had turned vanilla as a result of the medication. My reply to his mother was that this was a common scenario that I regularly dealt with, and it was also fairly easy to deal with.
During his first appointment we established that he was bullied mostly for his physical appearance. He did not fit the model that children saw as normal and was teased about his ears and very thin frame. He was on the high side of the IQ bell curve and was very good at what people may generally define as geek things. This also left him a bit of an outcast as he appeared to be gifted and did not socialize well with other children his age and often sought to interact with people older than him.
As this was not a difficult case to deal with, he was able to stop the medication almost immediately and only had to deal with the physical side effects of medication withdrawal. He was able to see on a subconscious level that he was now around young adults looking to better themselves by furthering their education, and not children who were immature and simply did not know better. Once that was accepted his anxiety disappeared in a matter of seconds.
The second thing that needed to be addressed was the emotional damage from all the years of bullying. That took a bit longer as several specific incidences needed to be addressed and a general approach was not appropriate in this case.
