FOOD ALLERGY OR INTOLERANCE: TREATMENT OF MENTAL PROBLEMS
Hypnotherapy is also useful, except with those susceptible to depression, since this can be brought on or made much worse by hypnosis. A professional hypnotherapist should assess each potential patient carefully and advise against treatment where necessary.
For those who cannot afford this sort of treatment, but have plenty of time to spare, co-counselling may represent a viable alternative. After a period of training, co-counsellors are paired off, and thereafter act as both counsellor and client to each other. The idea may sound strange at first, but it often works very well, and the co-counselling movement has many enthusiastic adherents.
For some people it can be enormously helpful just to write things down on paper. The process of recording how you feel sets up an internal dialogue that can offer new insights into old difficulties. Yoga or meditation may also be helpful in learning to relax. For the less spiritually inclined, biofeedback offers a ‘scientific’ route to relaxation.
There is one ailment where learning to relax is of special importance, and that is asthma. The fear of suffocation that accompanies an asthmatic attack is understandable, but the anxiety itself can make the attack worse – or even bring one on unaided. Asthmatics should learn a relaxation technique and practise it every day so that it can be ‘turned on’ at will, whenever an attack seems imminent. Hypnotherapy is often used to teach this sort of instant relaxation, and is particularly effective with children. They learn to feel that they are able to control the asthma, which reduces their feeling of helplessness and panic. In the case of children, it is very important for the parents and other adults to stay calm as well – anxiety is infectious. For children who are too young to learn a relaxation technique, a reassuring presence and a warm drink can often stave off an attack.
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