NLP for Difficulties With Handwriting

How can NLP help people who have difficulties with handwriting? Here‘s a case of a man who asked me for advice and how I advised him.

The man had the following difficulties with handwriting:

I’m an engineering student.  Until the 8th grade I wrote with my right hand, but I don’t know what happened to me and I started having problems with writing. After trying a lot I did not regain handwriting and had problems with a. s, and other letters.  Eventually I could not even write 0 properly. So I started writing with my left hand.  I practiced a lot and it went fine for a few years.  But from last year the same problem started arising in my left hand.  Now I’m very depressed and tense about my future.  I can’t understand why this thing happens with writing.  It works fine for every other thing I do.  I even went to a psychiatrist.  But he said that there was no problem.  Please help me.

…and here’s how I worked with him: 

I told this man that a psychiatrist would certainly not help him, because this issue was outside a psychiatrist’s expertise.  To say that there’s no problem is gross: there obviously was a problem. So we tackled it together:

1. I told this man that his depression was natural, because he felt stuck and didn’t yet know what to do.  I advised him not to let depression eat him, because if it did, it would inhibit learning and start the vicious circle of depressed – closed to learning – more depressed – more closed to learning.  He must be in a receptive state in order to deal with a problem.  I advised him to stay depressed for now if he doesn’t know how else to be, but turn his depression down as much as he could.  How?  By asking:
a) How am I de-pressing myself?
b) And how am I letting this issue control me?
c) How can I acknowledge the positive intention of the depression and create a more useful state?
d) And how can I turn this difficulty into valuable learning?

Moreover…

2. If this problem occurred in only one context, this may be because that context is a symbol [anchor] for something negative that happened in this man’s life at or around the time when he stopped writing with the right hand.  I encouraged him to examine his life by asking:
a) What was happening in all other areas of your life then?
b) Did you worry a lot about anything?
c) Did you react this way to some bad thing that happened to someone you knew?
d) Or did you react like this in protest to someone / something elsewhere in life?
The answers might be surprising. Go with whatever it be.  If this was the key to the problem, he now had the answer which he could evaluate from a new perspective and admit that his brain overreacted which caused the right hand to shut down.

And once more…

I asked him to examine his life again around and at the time when his problem repeated itself with the left hand.
a) Did the right hand circumstances compare with the left hand circumstances?
If yes, is there a pattern?  A recurring theme?
If not, what is obvious?
b) What were the messages in both sets of circumstances?
c) How could this man use the positive intentions of the messages to teach his brain to put it right?

3. People often believe that something in their brain / hand / arm stops working.  This is nothing more than a belief.  Once you find the positive intention of beliefs and reasons why they were formed, you can change the beliefs.

4. Writing is a visual activity.  This man as an engineering student was highly visual.  If his brain had a power cut as a reaction to overwhelm, his brain simply symbolised the power cut as an inability to write letters.  The letters a and s are similar in lower case, so my theory would make sense.  I suspect that the man might have had problems with lower case e too.

More NLP ways to resolve difficulties with handwriting

When learning new handwriting, firstly observe the shapes of the problematic letters.  Look at them and observe exactly how the lines curve and straighten.  Secondly try drawing the letters with your eyes = let your eyes follow and exactly trace the letters.  Do this slowly at first. Once you become better, see the letters and copy what you see on paper with either hand.  This is how you begin to write again.

Another good exercise is:
Take a picture which is printed on paper.
Turn the picture upside down.
Copy it line for line.  At first you may think “I’ll never do this”, but let yourself go with it and you’ll be surprised at how well you WILL do it!

Do you need NLP help with difficulties with handwriting? Or do you know someone who does? I can help.