WORDS CAN HEAL!
Words have enormous power. Merely listening to some words or speaking of particular words can make us sad, angry, happy and jealous. The feelings are expressed through words and gestures; similarly usage of specific words and gestures can activate specific feelings. Words become tied with feelings and emotions. Words can create mental pictures of objects and situations. Words can also trigger body-mind reactions. To exemplify this power of words, I give following example:
I am having a ripe lemon of yellow color in my hands… I am cutting it into two halves by a knife… I am holding one piece of lemon between my thumb and index finger… I am opening my mouth… now I am squeezing the lemon on my tongue… the lemon juice is spread all over my tongue… I am squeezing it … squeezing… squeezing…
My above words create mental picture of lemon in the listener’s mind, also make many of them can feel the sour taste and increased salivation. In reality there is no lemon, no cutting or no squeezing on the tongue; still it creates body-mind reaction. This further demonstrates that words have power to create mental image and body & mind reaction. Words become attached to emotional experiences.
Since words have such a power, the power of words can be put to use to heal psychological conditions, phobia and OCD in this context. This method of manipulation of words to heal can be extremely powerful and easy for the affected persons.
The anxiety and fear looks into the future. There is a future orientation and use of future tense in the language of the fearful persons. His/her language and tenses contain will/shall in underlying feared cognition. The use of will/shall under conditions of anxiety activate brain areas that are related with future tense.
One of the important task is to convert the tense of underlying feared cognition into present or past. This tense modification will result in linguistic level changes in the structure of covert/sub-vocal language used by the affected person in fearful situations. I am giving an example of tense conversion from the script of a real case worked out by me.
Underlying Feared Cognition in Claustrophobia:
1. There will be reduction in oxygen
2. I will become unconscious
3. I will experience suffocation
4. I will die of suffocation
Tense Converted Drill Statements in Claustrophobia: The future tense is converted into past or present.
1. There is reduction in oxygen level
2. I have become unconscious
3. I am experiencing suffocation
4. I am dying because of suffocation
Verbal Exposure: The best treatment of fears is the exposure. One need to expose oneself to the fears repeatedly. The repetition is the key to exposure. Expose-Expose-Expose.
According to the theories of psychology, when a person is repeatedly exposed to the fears, the fear initial increases then keeps on declining. The end result of exposure is reduction in fears. Previously, this exposure was being done either in imagination or with real objects/situations. The person who is fearful of closed places, would be asked to imagine the closed places. This may be coupled with relaxation. For real exposure, the affected person will be taken to the lift or closed places, and would be encouraged to be there.
The idea of verbal exposure largely has gone unattended. It is very easy to implement the repeated exposure at verbal level. In a claustrophobic, the usage of words associated with closed places, itself trigger fear reaction. The repetitions of simple statements such as ‘I am in the lift”; ‘I am in the lift”; ‘I am in the lift”; will activate fear reaction. If the repetition is continued for sufficient duration and frequency, the fear will get detached from these words.
The verbal repetitions are termed as ‘Drill’. This form of exposure provides unique opportunity to practice exposure therapy. The person with claustrophobia performed following drill before me.
1. There is reduction in oxygen level
2. I have become unconscious
3. I am experiencing suffocation
4. I am dying because of suffocation
The repetitions of these converted feared cognition, elicited anxiety reaction in the person. He kept on repeating the statements and then within few minutes noticeable changes were observed. He felt relaxed and free. I noticed that the repetitions of the emotional words used by the patients are more powerful for both triggering fear reaction and achieving extinction of the fear reaction. So I use the words being used by the patients. If I replace the key words used by the patient with my words, it may or may not impact the psyche of the patients. The rule is Go by the words of the patient.
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