Fingernail Biting
This is one of those applications which gets dicey. That's to say, it's best to get a referral from an MD or other licensed professional before working with someone who bites his fingernails to an extent that he hurts his fingers.
The rule is to use your gumption and tend to be conservative. My policy is when in doubt get a referral.
Anyway assuming you do have that referral you go through the normal procedure of intake and pretalk. Find the clients motivation by using the four quadrant motivation questionnaire for nail biting. Discover when does the person bite nails often. What are the triggers and feed back the motivation to stop biting her nails and relaxation and calm when confronted with triggers into the following script.
Start with your favorite induction and deepening. Remember any script should be the starting guiding point. Alter these scripts and make them your own. Read the anatomy of a hypnotherapy session since the basic pattern is the same and the details change in different applications of hypnotherapy.
Nail biting script.
Note: in the flowing script the bolded text is embedded commands which can be said with analogical marking (a slight change of voice - typically slowing the tempo and lower tonality - very subtle changes - if you can't do it just say the embedded commands normally).
Allow yourself to concentrate on your breathing as you release all need or desire to bite your finger nails... As you stop these desires you can stop biting your nails... now, feel all of the tension leaving the chest area as you exhale ... feel yourself relaxing even deeper with each and every breath ... the more relaxed you feel, the easier you'll breath, the easier you breath the deeper you'll go, the calmer you can become, and the more relaxed you'll be.... breathing in calm relaxation and exhaling all the tensions in your body as you release all beliefs that you cannot stop biting your nails... and your breathing is becoming more and more regular as you allow yourself o think about a time when you have beautiful finger nails... so easy and effortless and you are relaxing more and more ... and your entire body is completely and totally relaxing as you drift even deeper down with each and every breath as you release all impediments to stop biting your nails... and you feel a warm wonderful sense of relaxation and going even deeper down ...
Now.... use the power of your imagination to see yourself in a calm, relaxed future.... looking great, relaxing, feeling very good, very safe, very secure. Now.... allow yourself to look at your hands and see how good they look. Your nails are grown out; your cuticles look healthy.
You are so proud of yourself now that you no longer bite your nails. You are glad now that you have stopped biting you finger nails....
Continue relaxing as you allow yourself to think, "If you start to bite your nails or cuticles, because you used to do that, your hands will become very visible to you and as your nails grow and become healthier and healthier you will feel better and better about yourself."
[Here give the specific motivations of this person for stopping biting his nails. Include the name of the client and repeat stop biting you nails as direct and embedded commands. Finally do a future pace as in the next paragraph.]
Imagine seeing yourself in three months time in a situation where you might have bitten your nails in the past. See yourself handling the situation very easily. You feel no need to bite your nails. You are so glad that you have stopped your futile habit of nail biting.
[Future pace to six months using something like the above and then future pace to a year in the future. and then finally use your favorite realerting procedure]
And this is how the master Milton H. Erickson did it (from case study reported in Varieties of Double Bind The American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, January 1975, 17, 143-157):
A 26-year-old man with a M.A. degree in psychology came reluctantly to Erickson for hypnotherapy at his father’s quest. He had started biting his fingernails at the age of four to escape long daily practice at the piano. He had bitten his fingernails until they bled, but his mother was unmoved by the bloodstains on the keys. Eventually his nail biting became an uncontrollable habit. Erickson wrote that the client resented being sent for hypnotherapy a huge amount and told him so.
Erickson began in his normal way of accepting the client's model of the world (pacing) by assuring him that he was justified in his feelings. Next he leads by telling the client, "I was amused that he had allowed himself to participate in self-frustration for 22 long years.... To get out of playing the piano you bit your fingernails to the quick until it became an unbreakable habit despite the fact you have wanted long fingernails. In other words, for 22 years you have literally deprived yourself of the privilege of biting off a good sized piece of finger nail, one that you could really set your teeth on satisfyingly.”
Note: the continual pacing and leading. Erickson keeps telling the young man what he did and then did a mind read, "you have wanted long fingernails." I'll later write about Ericksonian hypnotic patterns. For now mind reads are one of them.
The young man laughed and said, “I see exactly what you are doing to me. You are putting me in the position of growing fingernails long enough to give me some genuine satisfaction in biting them off and making the futile nibbling I’m doing even more frustrating.”
When the client claimed he was not sure he wanted to formally experience hypnosis. Erickson paced him by accepting his desire "by adamantly refusing to make any formal effort." This set up a reverse-set double bind: The client asks for something she is not sure she really wants. The therapist sets up the double bind by refusing to do so. Thus, she is determined to want it, since now she could do so safely.
To continue with Erickson's case study: Erickson continued letting the young man know that he could grow at least one long fingernail. He could take huge pride in getting it long enough to have a satisfying bite. While he could frustrate himself totally by nibbling futilely at the tiny bits of nail on the other nine fingers.
Note as part of the above bind Erickson used futility which has both the meaning that the nail biting is meaningless and he needn't do it. This is like when I use "try in vain" to give a suggestion I do not wish to be accepted.
Erickson continued that even though, no formal trance was induced, his clients high response attentiveness indicated he was in what we might call “the common everyday trance” that is brought on by any absorbing activity or conversation.
He reinforced the light trance by the measure of arousing him with casually irrelevant remarks and then repeating the instructions. Erickson commented that when one casually repeats suggestions in the awake state right after they had heard them in trance, the clients say to themselves, “Oh, yes, I know that already, it’s okay.“ So their unconscious internalizes the suggestions. It is this internalization of the suggestion that makes it an effective agent in behavior change.
The intervention was successful even though he had never formally hypnotized the client. In the article Erickson reported that many months later the young man returned to display normal fingernails on each hand. He explained, “At first I thought the whole thing hilariously funny, even though you were serious in your attitude. Then I felt myself being pulled two ways. I wanted 10 long fingernails. You said I could have one only, and I had to end up by biting it off and getting a ‘real mouthful of fingernail.’ That displeased me, but I felt compelled to do it and to keep gnawing at my other fingernails. That frustrated me painfully. When the one fingernail started growing out, I felt pleased and happy. I was more resentful than ever at the thought of biting it off, but I knew I had agreed to do so. I eventually got around that by growing a second nail—that left eight fingers to gnaw on, and I wouldn’t have to bite the second long one off. I won’t bore you with details. Things just got more confusing and frustrating. I just keep on growing more nails and nibbling on fewer fingers, until I just said ‘To hell with it!’
His explanation, demonstrates the effect of the double bind. The compulsion to grow nails and nibble nails simultaneously and to feel more frustrated all the time was just unbearable.
Erickson reported that more than eight years after his intervention the client was well adjusted, and has normal fingernails.