Notice that You Always Take the Same Role in Your Family’s Drama?

Shelly, a divorced mother of 4 young boys, says that her ex-husband is such a jerk. She says that because of him, her two older boys need to go to therapy; she angrily states that he controlled her throughout their marriage; she hates that she has no money to pay for nice things that she wants and thinks he should pay her more spousal support; and she says that it is because of him that her life is now so awful.

Shelly is the way she is because of the dynamics she grew up with in her own family-of-origin. She unconsciously learned that when she played the role of the “victim,” she got attention during times when she was feeling neglected, and felt a (albeit false) sense of power during times when she was feeling powerless.

Shelly’s role is a very common occurrence in many families today and is part of a phenomenon often described as: The Victim Triangle of Co-Dependent Families and Addictions.

What are the Characteristics of the Victim Triangle?

The Victim Triangle has been around for a long time, first introduced by family systems’ therapists. It is the basis for dysfunctional codependent relationships/families and is almost always present in families with addictions. The common characteristics of these families are: an addiction to drama and chaos, a fear of intimacy, unpredictability, many unspoken rules, a distrust in people outside the family system, a high degree of conflict without any resolution, and a family steeped in shame.

What are the Roles of the Triangle?

As it implies, the triangle has three roles: the victim, the rescuer, and the persecutor. The glue that binds these roles together is lack of personal power and unclear personal boundaries; people don’t know who they are or where they end and another person begins. These boundaries become diffuse and undefined because the family members continuously jump from one role to another to another.

• The victim is a person who feels helpless, blames others, and feels sorry for himself: “If it weren’t for my boss, I’d be __________________(rich, happy, successful).” By blaming others, the victim surrenders his power which is what keeps him feeling helpless and powerless.

• The rescuer is a person who takes care of everyone else. Often times, this is a child of an addictive family who feels it is her responsibility to solve the family’s problems and take care of the addict. Within the role of rescuer is the victim consciousness.

The victim and rescuer are, naturally attracted to one another and thereby perpetuate the codependent relationship with one another. The rescuer is constantly trying to “fix” the victim, which results in the victim feeling even more helpless and eventually even resentful. In turn, this resentment brings about a role reversal, wherein the victim becomes the persecutor.

• The persecutor persecutes the rescuer, and then the rescuer becomes the victim. Persecutors can be physically, emotionally or sexually abusive; they may persecute by withdrawing love, sex, or money. They usually are very passive-aggressive and use guilt as a way to control and manipulate others. Interestingly enough, then the persecutor feels pity for the victim and moves to the rescuer position. The victim resents feeling helpless and having to be rescued and begins to persecute the rescuer. The triangle takes on a life of its own and off they go.

Why Do the Roles Switch So Often?

As you can see, this triangle is quite stable and roles are constantly changing. In family systems theory, three is the most stable arrangement. Think about it: two points connected by a line versus three points connected to make a triangle. The triangle wins out every time!

In the dysfunctional family, the sides of the triangle are made up of poorly defined personal boundaries. Dad asks his daughter, Suzie, a question and Mom answers for Suzie. Mom is upset that Suzie had a snack before dinner and Dad disciplines Suzie. Dad comes home drunk, Mom goes to the bedroom, and Suzie makes Dad a cup of coffee and sits up with him.

Why Don’t People Just Step Out of the Triangle?

That’s almost like asking why people don’t just step off a moving roller coaster! Remember how stable it is? If one person tries not to take a role, the other two will either overtly or covertly pull the person back in. In this way, the Victim Triangle is an addiction of sorts: Victims will attract rescuers and persecutors. Rescuers attract victims and persecutors and in turn, persecutors draw victims and rescuers. Once this pattern has been established in your family-of-origin, it’s an imprint you carry with you wherever you go. For instance, if you were a rescuer while growing up, as an adult, you will attract mates, friends, and/or neighbors who are ideally suited to playing the “triangle game” with you.

Are You Ready for This One?

Here’s the kicker to it all: we can move in, out and around all the roles of the triangle ourselves, not needing other players! We do this all the time without even realizing it!

For example, let’s say you feel out of control with regard to food, like a helpless victim. In order to rescue your victim-self, you decide to go on a diet. Then you go to a party and have a piece of cake, wherein you become angry, start persecuting yourself by putting yourself down and making derogatory and harsh self-statements. You then, again, begin to feel guilty, out-of-control, and helpless and…here you are, right back where you started: a victim.

Let’s Take a Real Life Example

Bob was born with severe asthma, the victim. He is young, helpless, has physical problems. His mother, Sharon, feels sorry for him and begins to rescue him (This, by the way, is exactly how pity and love get confused). Sharon is very overprotective of Bob, not allowing him to play with the other boys and not allowing him to take risks. This further imbeds Bob’s feelings of helplessness and powerlessness, and invites others to persecute him. Bob’s father, Dan, wants Bob to stop being a “sissy” and decides to “play rough” with him to toughen him up. The more Dan does this, the more Sharon rescues, and the more Bob feels like the victim.

Calgon, Take Me Away!

Often times, people come into therapy unaware that they have been playing this game their whole lives! They seek relief from eating or addiction issues, while lurking underneath is this codependent cycle.

Since hypnotherapy treats the symptoms as well as the underlying causes of the symptoms, it is highly effective at dissolving this habitual life pattern in order to replace it with healthy, functional intra- and inter-personal relationships.

Really?? How??

From the example above, Sharon, the mom, was the one sought treatment. She came to therapy because of what she termed her, “emotional eating.” Sharon said that she had tried everything under the sun to try to curb her eating, and nothing had worked.

Sharon agreed to try hypnotherapy. Once relaxed, she determined that she feels some guilt, shame and fear right before she is about to emotionally eat. She then went back to a time when she was 6 and remembered watching her younger brother getting beaten by her step-father while her mother was at work. Her brother was only 3 1/2-years-old and had accidentally wet his bed. Sharon was eating breakfast when she witnessed this incident and reported how she felt so helpless and scared. She said that all she could do was to try to “act normal,” keep her eyes to herself, and continue to just eat her cereal. She reported feeling robotic and “numbed out,” as she was eating. Then she said, “It was better than feeling all that guilt for not doing anything!” I helped Sharon connect how she had felt helpless sitting at the breakfast table, like a victim, and in order to take some control and avoid feeling that, she ate. Sharon then said, “I should have done something to save my brother.”

This was a way that Sharon continued the cycle of victimization on herself-by beating herself up-becoming her own persecutor.

After this session, Sharon began to draw some parallels between her childhood, her eating, and her current family situation. Sharon said, “Wow. I realize how now my son, Bob, is like my brother and how my husband is like my step-dad. And I’m still me.”

We had a couple more hypnotherapy sessions where Sharon visited other times in her childhood that made the pattern very clear to her and how she had played (and continues to play) the rescuer in the family: “So, what I’m realizing is that I either step in with my son and protect him and make him the victim, or I do nothing, feel guilty and ashamed and then eat.” Sharon connected with these younger parts of herself from her childhood and comfort them, telling them that it wasn’t their fault for not doing anything-that they were just children, themselves.

Once she did so, Sharon began to report big changes in her life. She noticed an increase in energy and more creativity. She said that Dan had begun to be interested in therapy to work on his own childhood, having seen the huge shifts in his wife. Sharon was allowing Bob to take more risks and play with the neighborhood kids, and Bob had actually made a new friend and had asked whether he could learn how to play the drums! Sharon wasn’t so sure she wanted to support the drum-playing (because she valued her sleep), but she was so pleased to see Bob’s initiative that she was willing to consider it!

Coming Full Circle by Way of Triangle

In this article we talked about the Victim Triangle of Co-dependency and Addictions: what it is and its roles, why it’s so common, and how to break out of it.

So if you can relate with Sharon story, (or even with Shelly’s whom we met at the beginning of this article), and you’ve tried other therapies without any luck, hypnotherapy may just be your answer! It just takes one person in the triangle to make a shift and the whole triangle changes!

Call me at 303-396-8084 for a free, 15-minute consult to make sure that hypnotherapy is the right fit for you!

If this article has been helpful, try subscribing to my free newsletter to get more valuable information about how hypnotherapy can help you in your life!

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How to Get Better, Faster

Desperately Seeking Some Relief

Erica felt desperate. She had been struggling with bulimia for 15 years and reported feeling totally out of control. She was bingeing and purging at least five times a day. She had been in “traditional therapy” off and on over the past 10 years but still felt that her disorder was in charge of her, rather than the other way around.

Many issues such as eating disorders are treated with talk therapy and take a long time to heal. After only three hypnotherapy sessions, Erica had completely stopped bingeing and throwing up. She said, “For the first time in my adult life, I feel like I am in control of my eating.”

Try Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is now recognized as one of the most powerful and effective brief psychotherapies; the reason being that it not only treats the symptom but also the cause. Most brief therapies are based on the precept of only treating the symptom, itself, and are not interested in the cause or causes of that symptom. So after six sessions, the symptom may be gone, but the cause still remains. As a result, clients are often dismayed to find that a short time later, another symptom arises.

Tired of chasing the problem?

Hypnotherapy uses a combination of techniques to treat clients say, for example, with anxiety or phobias, in only one or two sessions. Hypnosis is used to get to the source of the anxiety, which in turn, allows for the anxiety reaction to be quickly and effectively extinguished or eliminated.

What makes hypnotherapy so efficient?

Hypnotherapy is so much faster and more effective because it accesses the mental state in which the “trauma” was first experienced-the unconscious part of the mind. Just talking about the anxiety in a conscious mind state usually does not have any long-lasting effects.

How does hypnotherapy work so much faster?

Hypnotherapy bypasses the common fears, rationalizations, denial systems, and other defenses that the conscious mind concocts to resist the therapist, thereby allowing for the most effective use of therapeutic time. With the world speeding up as it is, there seems to be less and less time to take care of ourselves and just talk about our problems. We want change and we want it NOW. Hypnotherapy makes the most direct use of our limited time.

Remember how long things took before the advent of computers?

Well, hypnotherapy is the high-tech psychological operating system and your mind is much like a computer. There are memory chips in the mind that are accessed through hypnotic regression. By uncovering the hidden memories and “re-programming” them into more positive experiences, hypnotherapy clients can permanently change old behavior patterns and create new, healthy responses.

Is there danger in somebody working with my unconscious?

This concern is very understandable and speaks to what most people have seen on a hypnosis stage show. However, hypnotherapy is not a stage show, it is sacred. It is therapy. Hypnotherapy uses the part of the mind that great giants of psychology, like Freud and Jung, talked about. These pioneers discussed the profound importance the unconscious mind has in treating mental and emotional dis-eases. Hypnotherapy accesses the vastness of information, insight and creativity stored in the unconscious mind of each of us. No danger can come from accessing this part of the mind when the premise is for healing and well-being.

Yes, but does it stick?
And, we all know how difficult it is to change unhealthy, unwanted patterns–no matter what we do in our conscious mind. That is because they are held in the unconscious mind. It’s like trying to get milk out of a bull. SO, by accessing the unconscious mind and affecting change where the patters are held, we not only promote change, but lasting change.

So, where’s the proof it works faster?

Tim

Nikki brought her 10-year-old son, Tim, into my office feeling frustrated. She said that Tim was constantly asking her for something to eat-often right after he had just finished a meal. Nikki expressed how she didn’t understand why Tim was hungry all the time and wondered whether I could help.

After an explanation of hypnotherapy to both Nikki and Tim, I asked Tim’s mom to leave the room and began to induce Tim into a deep, relaxed state. I tell him that we are going to focus on the feeling he gets in his tummy that he thinks is hunger and that we’re going to try to find out what else that feeling might be. Once in a relaxed state, Tim gets in touch with what he calls an “empty feeling” in his stomach. When asked what other feelings might be there besides hunger, he names anger and some sadness. Tim begins to talk about how his mom pays more attention to his younger brother, James and how it’s not fair. Tim expresses his anger and then begins to feel his sadness. He says that he misses his mommy and wishes she would hug him more and tell him that she loves him. Tim then begins to get in touch with his resentment towards his brother.

After expressing his emotions, Tim astutely says, “I just thought I was hungry when really I was sad and mad.” I am impressed with how quickly Tim was able to make this connection. Tim now said that when he feels that empty feeling in his tummy, instead of asking for food from his mom, he will now ask for a hug.

Further therapy was needed to work on the bond between mother and son, but from that session on, Tim no longer confused the feeling emptiness in his stomach with hunger.

Teresa

Teresa came to my office stating that she wanted to work on, what she termed, her “blah for life.” Teresa explained that she had had a tough childhood in that she grew up with an alcoholic dad and an absent mother. She was the oldest of 4 and often had to take care of her younger siblings because her parents were never really there. Teresa said that she does okay–she has a decent job, a nice husband and two beautiful children, but that she just never feels a zest for life. She mentioned how her husband always is telling her to cheer up, to smile once and a while, and to try to have fun. He wondered whether she needed to be on anti-depressants. Teresa stated, “I don’t feel like I can cheer up or smile or simply have fun. I don’t know why, I just can’t. And, I don’t want to take any drugs!”

After I led Teresa into a deeply relaxed state, I asked her to access a specific, most recent time she felt that “blah for life.” She recalled a time last month where she was watching one of her kids play soccer and felt absolutely no excitement. She talked with her “blah feeling” and let it know how she resented it because it kept her from enjoying the little things in life that are so precious.

I then asked her to go back to the source of this “blah feeling.” Teresa got in touch with her 5-year-old self. She described a scene where she was in the living room of the house she grew up in, playing, laughing and running around with her younger siblings. Her dad was drunk and stumbled into the room yelling and slurring. Teresa said that she was feeling scared that her dad would hurt her and her siblings. She gathered up her siblings and they all went and hid underneath the stairwell. I instructed Teresa to talk to her dad and tell him how she was feeling. After she did so, Teresa realized that that at 5, she had concluded that it was “bad” to be a kid, to laugh and play and be free. She decided to leave that 5-year-old under the staircase and become the responsible, controlled eldest.

Teresa wanted to change her conclusion that she had made so many years back. She concluded that it was wonderful and more than okay to be a kid, to giggle and run around and be spontaneous. She decided that she not only wanted this 5-year-old back in her life, but also that she needed her. The adult Teresa rescued the little 5-year-old Teresa from under the stairwell and incorporated her into her heart and into her “self.”

After this session, Teresa cried each and every time she talked about “her little girl.” She expressed how amazing she feels to have her back and how she has begun to enjoy life so much more. Teresa said that she finally feels whole and that her husband can’t believe the amazing zest for life that she now has!

Briefly Summarizing

In this article we discussed what hypnotherapy is, and how it accesses the source of problems and patterns by bypassing the common defenses held in the conscious mind. In doing so, this therapy process creates quick, effective, and lasting change without endangering the client. We then gave case examples of two clients who showed the power and efficiency of this work.

If you are looking for a therapeutic modality that can save you time and money, that can give you relief without the use of prescription drugs, hypnotherapy may be your answer! If you’re ready to try it out, call me for a free, 15-minute consult to make sure hypnotherapy is right for you.

If this article has been helpful, please subscribe to my free newsletter to get more valuable information about how hypnotherapy can help you in your life.

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What is Transpersonal Psychotherapy?

The succinct, nuts-and-bolts explanation of Transpersonal Psychotherapy is that it is counseling that includes traditional, egoic experiences of healing emotions, memories and cognitions, and also transcends beyond the ego experiences to include Self or Soul experiences of healing by including the collective unconscious, suble energy and the Spirit World. It is therapy that draws upon all areas of psychology, including Transpersonal Psychology.

What is Transpersonal Psychology?

Transpersonal psychology stands at the interface of psychology and spirituality. It is the field of psychology which integrates psychological concepts, theories, and methods with the subject matter and practices of the spiritual disciplines. Its interests include spiritual experiences, mystical states of consciousness, mindfulness and meditative practices, shamanic states, ritual, the overlap of spiritual experiences with disturbed states such as psychosis and depression, and the transpersonal dimensions of interpersonal relationships, service, and encounters with the natural world.

The core concept in Transpersonal Psychology is nonduality , the recognition that each part (e.g., each person) is fundamentally and ultimately a part of the whole (the cosmos). As obvious as this might sound, it has radical implications for psychological systems founded on the premises of mechanism, atomism, reductionism, and separateness. From this insight come two other central insights: the intrinsic health and basic goodness of the whole and each of its parts, and the validity of self-transcendence from the conditional and conditioned personality to a sense of identity which is deeper, broader, and more unified with the whole (Lajoie and Shapiro, 1992; Scotton, Chinen, and Battista, 1996; Walsh and Vaughan, 1993a).

The root of the term, transpersonal or “beyond the personal,” reflects this impulse toward that which is more universal than individual or personal identity. Since the root of the word, personal, comes from persona or the masks worn by Greek actors to portray characters, transpersonal means literally “beyond the mask.” These masks both hid the actor and revealed the actor’s role. Following this metaphor, transpersonal psychology seeks to disclose and develop the source and deeper nature of our identities, roles, and self-images.

However, it is important that a focus on nonduality, self-transcendence, and intrinsic health not negate the importance of individuality or personalness. Transpersonal psychology’s orientation is inclusive, valuing and integrating the following: psychological development as well as the spiritual; the personal and the transpersonal; exceptional mental health, ordinary experience, and states of suffering; ordinary and extraordinary states of consciousness; modern Western perspectives, Eastern wisdom, (some) postmodern insights, and worldviews of indigenous traditions; and analytical intellect and contemplative ways of knowing.

Transpersonal psychology is not a religion; it does not present a belief system or provide an institutional structure. Rather, it is a field of inquiry which includes theory, research, and practice, offering insights based on research and experience and practices for evaluating and confirming or disconfirming its findings. It is scientific in the broader sense of the phenomenological or “human” sciences (Braud and Anderson, 1998; Davis, 1996; Giorgi, 1970). Overlaps between psychology and spirituality have been present in both psychology (e.g., William James, Jung, Maslow) and in the spiritual traditions (which have their own rich views of development, cognition, social interactions, emotional and behavioral suffering, and methods of healing).

A core practice for transpersonal psychology includes meditation, mindfulness, contemplation, and phenomenological inquiry. Comparing the role of meditation in transpersonal psychology to the role of dreams in psychoanalysis, Walsh and Vaughan (1993a) referred to meditation as “the royal road to the transpersonal.” In this broad category, I would include other awareness practices such as Gendlin’s (1982) Focusing technique drawn from phenomenological philosophy and psychotherapy. While meditation and related practices can be used for self-regulation, relaxation, and pain control or for self-exploration and self-therapy, they have traditionally been used for self-liberation (Shapiro, 1994). Despite their many surface forms, most styles of meditation can be a means of disidentifying from our “masks” or egos and realizing our fundamental nonduality (Goleman and Ram Dass, 1996).

Other practices that are associated with transpersonal psychology include shamanism, lucid dreaming, and psychedelic drugs (Walsh and Vaughan, 1993a). I would add ritual as another important, though less recognized, transpersonal practice. For people in many cultures, ritual is the central means of discovering connections with each other, with communities, with the Earth, and with the cosmos (e.g., Somé, 1998).

Transpersonal psychology has benefits for both psychology and the spiritual disciplines. Psychology can expand toward a fuller and richer accounting of the full range of human experience and potential and incorporate practices that speak more directly to the depth of our nature. The spiritual disciplines can incorporate insights and skills about human development, healing, and growth to deal more skillfully with the psychological issues that arise with spiritual development. It can use these issues as gateways, rather than obstacles, to self-realization.

John Davis

Published in
Guidance and Counselling, (2000, Spring). 15 (3), 3-8.

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Between Lives Soul Regression (BLSR), is a type of specialized hypnotherapy which includes and subsumes Past Life Regression (PLR). It was developed and thoroughly researched by Dr. Michael Newton, author of the books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls.

Once clients are guided through a past life, they exit the body and move beyond all physical limitations into spiritual realms of existence. In these realms, clients meet groups of souls that make up their “soul group;” they meet Spirit Guides; and they meet their Council of Elders: a group of wise, evolved souls who oversee their individual soul-progress and aid in choosing their incarnations.

Many clients request a BLSR session to learn about their current life’s purpose. In an BLSR, clients gain insight into their own soul nature, why they choose certain bodies and issues, and how they fit in their current incarnation on Earth. When clients access the spiritual realm, their true “home,” they report feeling peaceful, joyous, positive, loved and loving, compassionate, and aware of the perfection in all things.

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Past Life Soul Regression (PLSR) is a specialized type of hypnotherapy specifically targeted to access past lives. It allows unconscious material from past life traumas or other charged emotional events to be brought into the consciousness of today. PLSR can resolve past-life scripts and/or contracts (karma) that may be negatively affecting a person’s present-day health, behaviors, patterns, and/or overall quality of life. By navigating through the origins of target issues, clients release stuck energies that have plagued them their entire lives. PLSR is capable of resolving physical complaints, such as migraines, allergies, unexplained pains, emotional dis-eases, such as panic attacks and phobias, and interpersonal difficulties, such as relationships and reactionary-type behaviors.

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