I once had a patient who was an architect and who suffered from Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease.

The cortisone preparations and surgical interventions used to treat it had placed an enormous strain on her body. After attending a number of therapy sessions, the disease seemed to have remitted somewhat. I said to her,

“Imagine your body is a magnificent old house awaiting renovation – what does it look like?” She described a Wilhelminian-style villa surrounded by lush greenery, with exquisite stucco work, superb wallpaper and elegant furniture. The house appeared to have been neglected for many years. Wherever the eye turned, there were traces of water damage, cracks in the walls and crumbling plaster. Many of the formerly beautiful features now looked neglected and derelict. “What does the restoration team need to do?” I asked. She listed a number of jobs, and we discussed the order in which they should be done.

I asked for an update on the renovations at each of the following therapy sessions, and was always told that the workmen had made progress. What choice did they have? After all, renovations go forwards, not backwards. Once the woman told me, “The original features in this room have been damaged to the extent that the workmen are unable to restore them faithfully. They replace what is missing to the best of their ability, and try to make it look like it might once have done.” After another few weeks she told me that the renovators had finished their work, and that the villa had been fully renovated.

That was around thirteen years ago, and her state of health has been significantly better ever since.

The case history “The Villa” illustrates the technique of influencing an immune disease or other somatic disorder through metaphorical instructions which imply progress alone and exclude any possibility of relapses. It is also useful for promoting the healing of wounds or bone fractures.

The story relates to a case from 2004 (13-year catamnesis). The metaphor largely excludes the possibility of relapses. Once the brain has accepted the image as being fundamentally relevant to the way in which the body is viewed, it excludes any bodily behaviour which is incompatible with the metaphor. The architect’s profession is used as the source of the metaphor; as illustrated by the story “Sorting Screws”, images and tasks which pick up on aspects of the patient’s identity are more powerful than those which are externally dictated.

On the topic of wound healing and the accelerated healing of bone fractures through auto-suggestion, Milton Erickson describes the case of the US psychiatrist Robert Pearson, who healed his own broken skull completely within a single week. (Rosen, 1982) Erickson refers to studies carried out by a surgeon and psychiatrist who used hypnosis to promote wound healing in every second patient on whom he operated. These patients’ wounds healed more rapidly. (Zeig, 1985, 222).

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

The alarm bell rings. The pounding of rapid footsteps can be heard, mingled with the sound of people calling to each other and then the creaking of protective clothing being pulled on quickly. Rapid footsteps can be heard once again. Within less than a minute, the firefighters are in the fire engine and driving away, accompanied by the deafening sound of the siren. They arrive at the scene of the fire. Smoke is billowing out of a third-floor window. The officer-in-charge gives the commands. The fire engine driver raises the ladder, two firefighters get the hoses ready and another two run to the front door of the apartment block. A window opens. “Hello, what’s going on?” “Fire! Stay where you are! We’ll rescue you!” “But I don’t need rescuing! The room next door is my kitchen – the cake I was baking started to burn while I was out at the shops, so I opened the window to get rid of the smoke. Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee? I’m sure you won’t mind the smell of smoke.” The firefighters are taken aback at first, but then they laugh. “Mission abort!” calls out the officer-in-charge. “False alarm!” The hoses are rolled up again and the ladder lowered. The men at the entrance to the apartment block stroll casually back to the fire engine, grinning. They take off their helmets and protective clothing and place them in the fire engine. Then they go upstairs, where mugs of hot coffee are already waiting for them. “I think you should overhaul your alarm system,” says the owner of the apartment. The officer-in-charge nods. The alarm system needs an overhaul. “We review every call-out, particularly call-outs of this kind,” he says with a wink. “We’ll tell the control room so that the same thing doesn’t happen again in the future. Great coffee though!”

The story “Call-Out” is another intervention which can be used to heal inflammation, and which can be used (like the following story) to strengthen the immune system, cure or reduce the severity of allergies and autoimmune diseases and cure inflammation. I have used the story for patients suffering from conditions including inflammation and Crohn’s disease. For patients suffering from bowel conditions, I refer to the fact that the hoses are stable and made from strong fire-proof materials.

One client responded to this story with a similar tale; “Once I was called out with the volunteer fire brigade, and we set out with sirens blaring. We arrived at the scene of the fire and extinguished it. While we were driving back, the sirens were still sounding.”

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

My foot had been hurting for weeks. What on earth could be wrong with it? I remembered feeling something similar when suffering from phlebitis many years ago. A homeopathic remedy called Lachesis had cured the problem back then. “Dear body,” I said, “please check whether Lachesis would help. If you think it would, please behave as if you had taken it.” Was that the right thing to say? A momentary shiver ran over my skin, which I decided must be my subconscious responding to the idea. The symptoms vanished overnight and did not return.

The story “Placebo IV” uses the technique of focusing the body’s self-healing capacities on a region of the body in cases of inflammation. The body is addressed very directly and reminded of what was useful in an earlier situation. Imagining a medicine prompts the body to behave in the way that it would normally behave in response to that medicine. The body is told to do “more of the same” if this behaviour is helpful.

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

Someone once told me the following story; “I was visiting my sister. My niece was getting confirmed, and my brother-in-law had a terrible cold. He was sneezing, sniffing and coughing, and clearly felt terrible. ‘The homeopathic remedy Schuessler Salt No 3 would help,’ said my sister. ‘But we don’t have any in the house.’ ‘That doesn’t matter,’ I replied, and turned to my brother-in-law. ‘Say to your body, “Dear body, please check whether Schuessler Salt No 3 would help, and if it would then respond as if you had taken it.”’ ‘But he’s never tried it before,’ objected my sister. ‘That doesn’t matter either,’ I replied, citing as evidence the case of a patient treated by some doctor or other. In the meantime, my brother-in-law had stopped sneezing and sniffing and looked a little better in general. I cried out, ‘Great job! You must have an incredibly powerful subconscious – that’s truly impressive! Brilliant! What a feat of the subconscious – and you managed it so quickly! I think Schuessler Salt No 3 has done you a lot of good! You’re doing a brilliant job…’ My brother-in-law gave a lopsided grin and looked a little embarrassed, but his symptoms had reduced significantly, and stayed like that all day.”

The story “Placebo III” demonstrates how the placebo effect can be actively used to heal a cold, even if the relevant medicine is not currently available and has never been taken by the patient before.

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

Paul was lying in bed and feeling bored. He longed to feel well again. “Can’t someone do something to speed things up?” he asked. “It just takes time,” came the answer. “Although there is a computer game… unfortunately we don’t have it, but I’m sure you can imagine it… it works like this; your body’s police force is on patrol, searching for criminals in the blood vessels and throughout the entire body. The police officers look like large spheres, with eyes and sharp teeth. The criminals are little spheres which try to hide. When a police officer has eaten five of the little spheres, he has enough health points to split into two police officers. Then they hunt as a team of two, and soon as a team of four, eight and so on. The game can be played at different speeds, and of course the aim is to make the police officers as fast as possible while still catching all the criminals without whizzing past any by mistake. If you’re successful, you can set it to go even faster. The game has ten different skill levels, and you should make sure that you start on a level where you have a good chance of winning. The final thing which is important to know is that the game has a sophisticated graphical design which means that you can choose how it looks. The police officers can whizz through the body’s blood vessels – both the small ones and the large ones – or through a kind of sewerage system which looks like a large and complicated system of water slides. They can roll like marbles along a marble run with lifts and moving staircases, or they can travel at supersonic speed in spaceships zooming through the air in a huge intergalactic system of tunnels. Choose the version you’d like to play first, and press the start button – now!”

“The Recovery Game” demonstrates how the immune system can be strengthened through suggestion during a time of illness; it can also be used (in slightly modified form) to prevent illness. The story is one of a whole genre of therapeutic stories which involve inventing computer games or similar games of skill, and which can be designed to boost performance at school, to increase self-confidence or for many other purposes. They are ideal for use with children and young people in the context of joint storytelling.

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

Imagine that you’re in a cold, clear place on a winter’s day. You take deep, calm breaths and enjoy the crisp, fresh air. Time passes, and now it’s spring. Keep breathing steadily and carry the pleasant sense of calm with you. Imagine that you’re breathing deeply, calmly and with pleasure, since you know that you’re safe now and will remain safe. It does you good to breathe so calmly and peacefully. Imagine that it’s spring, and you’re walking in a meadow past blossoming birch trees with the same sense of calm and the same deep breaths, and perhaps you’re even surprised that you feel so good. You breathe deeply and steadily. You feel no fear, and you enjoy this feeling. Imagine walking up to a birch tree, and having the wonderful idea of hugging it – and behold, it is very good.

A method of systematically desensitising hay fever through hypnotic suggestion can also be found in Hans A. Abraham, based however on the medicinal desensitisation of allergies, i.e. an unreal placebo, rather than the desensitisation of phobias. Gibbons suggests that the very small quantities of pollen present in the air or on objects during the colder months of the year act as a desensitising vaccination for the client. Abraham 1990.

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)