Separation anxiety is incredibly annoying. You feel unsure of the relationships you have and are constantly afraid that you will be abandoned. This actually prevents you from entering into a relaxed relationship. Separation anxiety is so severe in some cases that it is referred to as a disorder. In this blog, I will elaborate on separation anxiety and what you can do about it.
What is separation anxiety?
With separation anxiety, you fear being left by friends, family and/or your partner. At the beginning of your life, it is quite normal to have separation anxiety. By nature, you cling to your main caregiver and that is usually the mother.
Having separation anxiety is important for your survival as a small child because it ensures that you stay close to your caregivers. Especially where they can protect you from dangers.
For humans, this is especially important because we depend on our parents for a relatively long time before we can take care of ourselves. Whereas in the animal kingdom children sometimes stay with their parents for only a few years, for humans it is sometimes as much as a few decades (20 years).
Children who suffer from problematic separation anxiety usually get it because the caregiver's pattern is abruptly interrupted. For example, the caregiver may die or for other reasons no longer care for the child, which can feel like abandonment.
In children, the symptoms are then:
- Getting Tantrums.
- Not wanting to go to school.
- Excessive clinging to the caregiver.
- Abdominal Pain.
- Headache.
- Refusing to sleep alone.
- Nightmares about being attacked or kidnapped.
Children with depressed caregivers, unemployed caregivers and mothers who smoked during pregnancy are more likely to develop separation anxiety that becomes problematic[1].
Treating separation anxiety in children
Hypnosis in children is becoming increasingly common. In the case of separation anxiety, disturbing symptoms such as abdominal pain may not always be seen by the child as part of the problem of not wanting to leave your parents when you go to school. With conversational hypnosis, a counselor can make this clear to the child because children often already have or acquire a hypnotic state the moment they learn something[2].
Children's hypnosis is therefore not always quite the same as hypnosis with other people, because they enter that state more easily. However, you do need to prepare this well as a counselor.
Separation anxiety in adults
Recently, scientists have indicated that you can suffer from separation anxiety even later in life because we are social animals and need to maintain bonds with other people throughout our lives.
About 40% of adults who still suffer from separation anxiety acquired it after age 18[3]. This may be due to the death of a loved one[4] or some other traumatic event, for example.
As an adult with separation anxiety, you can recognize this by the following:
- You'd rather stay home.
- You have an object with you that gives you comfort (small stuffed toy or the like).
- You lean on friends who have the same phobia.
- You suffer from agoraphobia/square fear.
- You are much concerned about the safety of important people around you.
- You'll find an excuse not to work.
- You'll find an excuse not to go to school.
- You'll find reasons to call people you care about throughout the day.
- You are susceptible to advertising outlining an "ideal" home situation[5].
- You can get very anxious if your partner wants to do something without you, even if it's only for 30 minutes[6].
Sometimes you also have it in conjunction with bipolar disorder[7], post-traumatic stress disorder or panic attacks.
You are also more likely to have this disorder if you are a woman[8].
Treating separation anxiety in adults
Separation anxiety in adults is still often treated with medication, such as benzodiazepine and serotonin reuptake medication. Yet that's not always what you want. In fact, benzodiazepine can be addictive and many serotonin reuptake medications have other side effects.
In addition, adults are often made aware of the physical symptoms of anxiety so they can recognize when they are suffering from a moment of separation anxiety. In fact, when you suffer from anxiety, you often experience physical tension, sweating and an accelerated heart rate. By getting your physical reaction under control, you can use this to reduce the anxiety as well.
Hypnosis can help, for example, by listening to a calming guided visualization from the hypnosis expert. For example, after an initial live guided visualization for relaxation, you can take this guided visualization with you on mp3 so that you can listen to it at home if you suffer from anxiety.
This could include visualizations such as:
"You are in a beautiful place where you can completely relax. You feel safe and loved. You know that people you care about are thinking of you and are there for you. You go to a comfortable place in that beautiful place and lie down. You feel how the warmth in that place makes your body relax. Muscle by muscle you relax more and more. Each breath helps you relax further."
This is just one example. Depending on your anxiety level, a hypnosis expert may choose to give you a different visualization that will help you relax.
In addition, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is often given to help reduce separation anxiety. The techniques used in CBT are enhanced when done while the anxious person is under hypnosis. Usually the fears are then confronted.
Hypnosis can also help with this by confronting a visualization while under hypnosis. You then learn what you can do the moment you are confronted with the fear in real life. Because you have these new tools, the fear becomes a lot less, because you know what you can do to bring it to fruition.
Hypnosis and separation anxiety
So hypnosis can help with confronting separation anxiety and controlling your physical reaction to it. These are not the only ways hypnosis helps against separation anxiety.
In fact, research[9] also shows that people with separation anxiety often see themselves as not deserving of love and often see others as unreliable or not caring. Consequently, you often do not dare to enter into an intimate relationship for fear of being rejected.
These types of beliefs that create separation anxiety and rejection anxiety come from somewhere. According to previously mentioned studies, the cause of separation anxiety in adults still often lies in childhood, but this may have been exacerbated later by another event in which a significant person left the life of the person with the anxiety disorder.
To get rid of separation anxiety, it is first very helpful to see where it comes from and how logical the fear actually is. Regression is a very good tool if you know something went wrong somewhere in your childhood, but you can't put your finger on it. With hypnosis, you engage in regression therapy and manage to put your finger on exactly where you developed your separation anxiety. While you're doing the regression you're going to do something with that moment that makes your fear of abandonment diminish or even disappear.
Then you have the beliefs that you don't deserve love or something else that makes you fear that you are not good enough for your relationships and that people will leave you. In that case, hypnotic suggestions can build your self-confidence and help you feel that you do deserve love.
Because you repeat these suggestions while under hypnosis, they also penetrate your being more deeply and become part of your identity more quickly.
These may include suggestions such as:
"I'm good enough."
"Everyone has a life of their own."
"I deserve love."
"I give love."
"I'm a fun person."
These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on your beliefs causing separation anxiety, you may receive other suggestions from your hypnosis expert.
Hypnosis can help adults and children with separation anxiety. With children, hypnosis works about the same, but you can use conversational hypnosis more quickly than with adults where you need to invoke the hypnotic state more often before you can get to work.
Want to know what hypnosis feels like and if you can bring other people under hypnosis? Then sign up for the hypnosis playshop.
Is it precisely your interest to help people with separation anxiety or other problems as a hypnosis expert? Then enroll in one of our training courses, where you will learn techniques such as regression. Ask about online options if that suits you better.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcpp.12424
[2] https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/4/3/18
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4911766/
[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010440X15301772
[5] https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jscp.2017.36.2.158
[6] http://psychotherapist-nyc.blogspot.com/2010/01/psychotherapy-and-clinical-hypnosis.html
[7] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-018-0951-6
[8] https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14091185
[9] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Burkhard_Peter/publication/286909099_Hypnotic_sugestibility_and_adult_attachment/links/56a5d80b08ae1b6511345b13/Hypnotic-sugestibility-and-adult-attachment.pdf
