Avoidance of Pain or Gaining Pleasure are the only 2 motivators

So, let's talk about pain.

PAIN IS THE PRIMARY SYMPTOM: Pain is what motivates you to seek therapy.

Whether your presenting complaint is anxiety, depression, problems in a relationship, feelings of inadequacy, quitting smoking, losing weight, or whatever else, pain and its consequences are your fundamental reason for seeking help.

Every person that walks into my office is someone that has some kind of a problem. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there.

That problem is pain —whether the symptoms are anxiety, phobias, insomnia, stress, etc. — every one of those symptoms leads back to avoidance of pain. It is a painful thing subjectively to you, only some people spell pain sometimes as p-a-i-n, sometimes you spell it p-h-o-b-i-a, or s-t-r-e-s-s, or s-m-o-k-i-n-g, etc.

When I approach this thinking all problems are defined as pain, it seems to be easier for me to set aside any preconceptions and it allows me to examine and see each problem from a more unbiased and genuinely inquisitive point of view.

I become interested in the nature and location of each individual's unique discomfort, rather than trying to fit your peripheral symptoms or presenting complaints into a diagnostic category.

With this view, pain also makes it easier for you to understand and examine. The negative outcomes of psychiatric labeling are well documented.

I despise labels for the most part.

This approach allows you to cooperate more openly in your sessions and allows you to be less ambivalent about revealing your relevant thoughts and feelings when we refrain from diagnoses and frame the problems only as pain.

So, there are two reasons for tracing all problems back to an issue of pain. First, your experience suggests that pain is an accurate description of the distress, hurt, and tedium that so often fills your life.

Second, the metaphor of pain best conveys the perspectives and techniques that are most useful with various psychological and emotional issues and that underlie our hypnotherapeutic approach.

How much better would your life be once you learn to release that pain?

Hypnotically,

Dr. Shane

PS - Getting a good night's sleep is vitally important to your health and mental wellness. I have been seeing more clients to help with this lately, so I made this recording to help you Sleep Soundly.