Hynotherapy for Trauma
The Oxford Dictionary of English, describes a trauma as: “A deeply distressing or disturbing experience.”
However, our responses to those experiences can manifest in different ways:
1) Acute Traumatic Stress:
This is a normal response for people who have faced something traumatic, and is our body and minds way of trying to manage, and process that event.
Symptoms like:
Feelings of irritability, agitation, anger, fear, panic and sadness
And our bodies responses (what we call somatic experiences) of numbness (shock), shakiness, nausea, and dizziness, are all quite common.
We have to bear in mind though that we are all individuals and so some people may not show these signs, may process differently, and that is fine.
2) PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder):
This can occur, if we didn’t have the resources available to us, at the time, to process the trauma. This is usually seen as a response to a single traumatic event, and is evidenced by symptoms like:
The symptoms of Acute Traumatic Stress (see above) persisting for longer than 4 weeks
Re-experiencing intrusive memories or sensations.
Avoidance of reminders of the trauma
Experiencing a heightened sense of threat, arousal, hypervigilance
In some cases, people can start to feel:
Disconnected from their body, that it doesn’t feel their own
That the world around them isn’t real
·That they are dazed or in a fog (not related to medication)
That they are having trouble remembering details about the event
3) Complex PTSD (C-PTSD):
This is where people have experienced multiple traumatic events in their life and it feels as if they have no way out, that they are helpless and powerless. This is because of the repeated nature of the trauma, often as a child, but sometimes as an adult too. In those circumstances, we can often reach a point where it felt as if we had no way out. That our options, of escaping or fighting, whatever it was we were experiencing, were not available. When this happened, it may have felt as if we only had one option available to us, and that was to shut down. Something which could then have shaped our nervous systems response to future situations and to how we live our lives in general. It is our bodies way of trying to do all it can to escape, and support us. The effects of this physically and emotionally though can impact us in many different ways. And the symptoms and impacts of this are varied and large. But it is possible to work your way through them, with support, even if this is only one bit at a time.
So, How Can Hynotherapy Help?
When treating trauma, we have to remember that the experiences above are our bodies response to a trigger, to something that we feel is reminiscent of the experience we went through.
This could be
A memory
Talking about the event
Hearing someone else talk about something similar
Reading something similar.
It could be that we see or hear something in the external world that reminds us of our experience.
Whatever the trigger is, our nervous system is reminded of the event and then prepares itself, as if that event were happening.
In essence, it’s our bodies way of trying to protect us from that event, to keep us alive. Which can be useful when the event was taking place, but when they are not taking place anymore, then it stops being useful, and can impact our lives in so many unhelpful ways.
Using the Rewind Technique, I can help you to manage these responses and then using strategic psychotherapy and other methods, including hypnotherapy, I can help you to move forward with your life.
Information on the Rewind Technique can be found at the bottom of our Services page.
