You wouldn't wish this on anyone

I’m sure you can do it, Edwin—erase the entire emotion and the memory as well, if you wish; I certainly believe that’s possible. But should you really do that? Fear can be a very good motivator and a lesson to avoid something you’d be better off not getting involved in. Sometimes it’s good to be afraid of heights, so that you’re careful and won’t fall, for example. Sometimes someone becomes afraid of flying at a time when he or she didn’t dare face the fear of another major problem. In that case, overcoming the fear of flying is merely shifting the problem or the true goal. Fears can have a valid reason behind them, one that you can certainly learn to face without having to erase everything right away. In fact, I’d say it’s better not to. You can leave the memory intact—and thereby preserve the lesson, as well as the integrity of your memory and identity—so you can learn to cope with what frightened you, even with NLP and hypnosis. I’d prefer that approach. Feeling and reliving everything all over again—that’s the other extreme; I agree with you, that’s not necessary either. But the reason for your fear, and the memory of that time—I’d prefer to approach those with respect for the good intentions and the context of both then and now....

My comment doesn’t have to be posted; for me, it’s important that you handle memories and emotions with care. Precisely because you’re so dedicated and reach so many people! Fear of flying seems like a harmless example, but what if a woman has been abused? Erasing the memory or emotion exonerates the perpetrator. It suggests that it didn’t happen, or that it wasn’t really that bad... Moreover, memories are stored in multiple ways—through your senses, your emotions, and linguistically—in your brain, so that in any of those ways, something of the emotion or memory can suddenly resurface through a similarity in pattern or sensory experience. However, if the experience of the emotion has been disconnected, you no longer know where it comes from—that feeling of fear and panic, for example—which puts you at risk of linking it to more or different objects. Your fear then becomes disembodied, rather than tied to the event from which it originated. I know what I’m talking about—that’s doubly frightening. As a therapist, you can never be certain that everything is “gone” or disconnected; whose interest is that? Isn’t it always to the detriment of the victim, who ultimately becomes more vulnerable because she can no longer even be sure—or trust her intuition, feelings, and memories—about who is trustworthy and who isn’t, and why? The perpetrator can spin all sorts of stories, and other people involved can no longer fully explain what really happened. The victim can’t trust her own feelings. You wouldn’t wish that on anyone, would you? By the way, thanks for your newsletter and emails; they always give me food for thought, even—and especially—when I disagree or want to be more cautious...