"I've slept like a baby ever since" Nicky Baker

David Samson featured in EVE Magazine
 

R**

Dear David,

I wanted to write to thank you for all your help over the last few weeks. I’ve known for years that my insomnia was due to some kind of psychological problem or anxiety that was manifesting itself in preventing me from sleeping, but without knowing what the anxiety was I had no idea what to do about it. I had thought about trying conventional therapy, but was put off by stories of people spending twenty years in therapy and still needing weekly sessions; if they hadn’t got to the roots of their problems and been able to address them in twenty years, how could they consider the therapy to be any kind of success? This is why I made an appointment to come and see you when I heard how you work. It seemed to be common sense that by cutting straight through the distractions of the conscious mind and allowing the subconscious to simply present the anxiety in its purest form, I wouldn’t waste hours, days or years churning over issues that may simply not be part of the problem. What I was amazed by was how successful, and how simple, the whole process was. Before I came to you I had no idea what the anxieties were that were keeping me awake, and how much they were affecting my everyday life. Now that, with your skill and guidance, the anxieties have been exposed, it all makes total sense. The feelings that I experienced in technicolour under hypnosis seemed to be concentrated versions of the feelings that I experience on a regular, everyday basis, and now that I know what they are, where they come from and how I can deal with them, they hold far less power over me.

It has given me a huge insight to how I have lived my life up until this moment, including why I made many of the choices I made and why I became an alcoholic in my twenties. I managed to stop drinking with help from AA just over three years ago, but have never had any insight as to why I drank in the first place; compared to many of my fellow alcoholics in AA my childhood seemed so normal. Why then, did I spend ten years of my life trying to obliterate myself with alcohol? Now that the emotional restraint of my parents has been brought to light (which was confirmed by my mother when she and I talked about it), I can recognise that a secure home is not enough if physical and emotional affection are withheld, and can understand the feelings of isolation, inferiority and loneliness that took root in me at an early age. Previously, not recognising the underlying problem, I had no way of laying these ghosts to rest. During our five sessions you have helped me to clarify the nature of the problem and the emotions and side-effects it gives rise to, and have given me the ability to go back into my past, to the root of the problem, and offer my young self the comfort and support she so badly needed. Armed with that, I can go on giving myself that comfort and support whenever the need arises, and so hopefully lay to rest the ghosts of my childhood loneliness and paranoia once and for all. I have found that by carrying around with me a little mental ‘wallet’ containing the three scenes from my childhood that I revisited under hypnosis, whenever something happens now that brings up those old feelings, I can mentally open the wallet, make the comparison with one of those childhood incidents, and therefore recognise why the current event is upsetting to me. Being able to recognise this, it makes it far easier for me to deal with it and move on.

I came to you for help sleeping; I really had no idea that you were going to help to heal all the wounds that have been subconsciously causing me so much pain for all of my adult life. I am incredibly grateful for this. I’ve given your number to a friend of mine, M***, who’s been suffering from insomnia too; hopefully she’ll give you a call and you’ll be able to give her the same help.

Good luck with your book; it goes without saying that if there’s anything I can do to help you only have to ask. Please do let me know when it’s published.

Best wishes and all my thanks, 

N****