Posted by Andrew on 31/10/2011, 4:31 pm, in reply to "Bad experience, should I try hypnosis?"

Hi Rich You have had it rough, haven’t you. The behaviour of those two drunks was totally out of court; alcohol reduces inhibition, and so they were showing an unpleasant side of themselves. As for bullying in school toilets: we hear a lot about that, and it being the start of shy bladder, for obvious reasons. It’s too late for you, but at least steps have now been taken to improve the design specification for school toilets so as to significantly reduce the possibility of that sort of behaviour occurring. I’m not surprised you feel down about it all. You were forced into a situation where in effect you had to jump in at the deep end, when in fact you are a swimmer who needs to be able to touch the bottom. It was never going to work. What you can do is to start at a level that you think you can manage: say large quiet toilets. Get used to them by using the cubicles, firstly with the door shut and then leaving the door open. Then move on to a urinal well away from others. Each step needs to be repeated until you are reasonably confident before moving on, and use fluid loading and 3 second peeing (see the instructions on our website www.ukpt.org.uk) so as to allow you to go say 10 times in say 45 minutes. This is also described in the book Shy Bladder which you can get on Amazon - there is a link from our books page. And you can attend our weekend workshop: there you will make good progress in a totally safe and supportive environment. You only have to read the feedback to see that. As for hypnosis: it is not the recommended treatment: it can help you to learn to relax, but it does not address the issue of fear. That can be addressed only by graduated desensitization, as done on the workshops, or as described above. That’s a very brief outline. There’s lots more on the website, and feel free to reply to this on this forum, or directly to me by email. Cheers Andrew

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