Case study (Nov 09)

Background

Sarah is 21 and lives with her parents, she's taken her driving test twice and failed because of nerves, so she's come to seek help at my practice in Bristol. She gets very nervous about approaching roundabouts, she's anxious of stalling and for reasons she can't explain, she's worried what the person behind might think. I explained how the brain works and how her anxiety was allowing her to have little control. We explored what she'd do when she passed and having independence was key for her. It would get her out of the house and she'd be able to see more of her friends.

Session 1
She'd had a good driving lesson that week, we went over her goals to be independent and that worrying about what the person behind thought was not helping and to just concentrate on what was going on ahead of her. I went through what we were going to do next week with a rewind, and showed her some mindfulness techniques to help her cope with the anxiety when in the car.

Session 2
Another good week, she was feeling more positive and scaled herself now at a 7, previously it had been 5. She felt she still needed a bit more confidence. I went through a rewind and focused the hypnotherapy session on confidence.

Session 3
She had a good week and she was now not focusing on the person behind, but she was still worried about stalling. We reframed the problem and got her focusing on going through the test and being calm, passing and then going out in the car and seeing her friends.

Session 4
She is feeling more confidence and has been much calmer . We did a driving exam visualisation.

I asked her to txt me when she passed and the next evening I received a text saying she'd passed.