THE TREATMENT

Sunday Herald, The, May 6, 2007 by JANE WRIGHT

"ALEOPARD can always change its spots", says the blurb for Lorna Hutcheon's life-coaching company Wooha, which is a very comforting thought when the particular spots you're trying to change are about decades of inner rage.

I immediately find the following words reassuring: "We are not born with phobias; we are not born with behaviour patterns; we are not born with addictions. They are all learned." The leopard changes its spots then, through NLP, (neuro-linguistic programming) which aims, literally, to re-programme the way your mind works when it comes to negative patterns of behaviour. Low self confidence? Scared of spiders? Want to stop smoking? NLP can help you work on these obstacles.

Iam here to work on my explosive anger which frankly I am weary of, not to mention the way it disturbs the people around me. I have always felt this way since I was a kid and I have long-since acknowledged that it is a defensive behaviour which usually happens when I feel under attack. The other thing about my anger is that there is no three-second weigh-up period beforehand; I just go Krakatoa and I desperately want to change.

Lorna assures me that with just a two-hour session, we can change a lifetime of angry behaviour through a range of techniques that will create and reinforce positive new decisions at the unconscious level quickly, thus creating a powerful shift from negative to positive behaviour. This is done through discussion of the issue and my feelings and associations, then through a series of visualisation techniques where I have to think about times I was really happy, confident, relaxed, etc. This is repeated with times I felt angry, under threat, disregarded, etc, while all the time Lorna is talking. The two hours fly by, and it is not at all emotionally draining. Best of all, a week goes by and I've lost my will to explode into righteous anger and I'm more aware of what triggers my annoyance.

Even better, is that four weeks on, I still haven't lost my temper once. Ask my colleagues. This really, really works.