Welcome back to a veterans day edition of Hypnosis News. Today I want to talk to the proud men and women who have served this country with honor. While I know that there are many others who suffer from PTSD, I know that many times these heroes are undeserved. Which is a shame given how much they have sacrificed to protect the men, women, and children of this nation.
My father was a Vietnam vet. He has suffered from PTSD. I have heard the good, the bad, and the ugly that soldiers have gone through both past and present. Many people like to blame the warriors for the problems when really, they aren’t making those choices they are just trying to keep us safe. So I want to take a moment to thank each and every hero out there, regardless of branch, rank, or anything else, for their service. Thank you for defending us.
PTSD
There are many troubling symptoms associated with PTSD. Regardless of whether you were affected by war or other trauma. The DSM V breaks these down into categories: Exposure, Intrusion, Avoidance, Alteration, and Arousal. Today I want to talk about what each of those means and how hypnosis can help.
Lets take a look at each one now.
1. EXPOSURE
Traumatic events come in many forms. From an accident, assault, disaster, or even an act of terror. Or it can be a prolonged series of events involving ongoing psychological, physical, or sexual abuse as a child or adult. These events change the perception and life experience the victim has of the world around them.
Our limbic system is programmed to respond to threats in one of three ways: fight, flight, or freeze. These traumas imprint on us, on the brain and body, in such a way, that those suffering from PTSD continue to live as though the trauma is still happening in the present.
How does hypnotherapy help?
Hypnosis is a powerful tool. while it cannot erase the precipitating event, it can address the event(s) and how they affect you. Hypnosis allows you to access the data of your mind that you might now otherwise be able to access. Data stored in our physical bodies and unconscious minds. With hypnosis the event can be examined more thoroughly giving you the ability to claim, process, and express the emotions preventing you from moving on. Not to mention that the process can allow you to take any negative conclusions or beliefs and release or transform them into positive behaviors and actions.
2. INTRUSION
The trauma causing someone’s PTSD affects them in a variety of ways:
- Nightmares
- Flashbacks
- Distressing memories
- To name a few…
Reactivity to or cues and reminders of the events are the most common ways in which trauma interrupts daily life. Most clients experiencing intrusive symptoms feel a lack of control. As if someone else is driving their bodies or minds. As if the trauma has hijacked their agency and free will.
How does hypnotherapy help?
Hypnosis gives you multiple tools, resources, coping skills, and opportunities, to take back that control. One of these methods is called ego strengthening. A process in which the client makes direct contact with parts of them that are wise, strong, and brave. This provides an anchor to lock these resources to. This new mind body connection allows them to remember and reclaim their own agency, strengths, virtues, and to ultimately heal themselves. In addition we can teach the client ways in which they can modify their own reactivity.
3. AVOIDANCE
When you’ve experienced a trauma, you obviously want to avoid every feeling that way again. This is to be expected. While many of these avoidance behaviors come from conscious choice, avoidance can also happen via dissociation, substance abuse, or addictive behaviors. These other methods are often far less conscious, but no less purposeful.
Avoidance is an attempt to gain distance between yourself and the trauma. However, when the trauma has roots in the mind and body, what we get instead is internal conflict. A fragmented sense of self. Avoidance excludes connection meaning that it can leave clients feeling detached, numb, and stuck. These symptoms can be short term but often last for years or indefinitely without some sort of intervention.
How does hypnotherapy help?
One of my favorite things in hypnosis is the use of trance to restore the self. To find those parts that are in disagreement and bring them together physically, mentally, and emotionally. So that the client can be made whole in every aspect of their life. From this place a healthy connection can be created. Parts therapy, in particular, gives a voice to those internal voices struggling to be heard and helped. Parts that were hidden away or shrouded in negativity to allow for survival.
In addition to parts, several types of regression can be used succesfully to allow the client to process traumatic memory. A hypnotist uses creativity and imagination through interventions to work through the events of the past and lead to a fuller future. In hypnosis a client can process those events, with addition resources they did not have at the time. Doing this work in trance changes the way the memory is stored as well as how it affects the mind and body. You can be set free from your past.
4. ALTERATION
Trauma changes the way we think, act, behave, and feel. It alters our personality, mood, memory, motivation, cognition, and perception of the world. This means that it also ends up bleeding through into our relationships with family, friends, and coworkers. During a traumatic event our sensory perceptions are raised. Our sense of safety in that kind of situation is often changed forever.
Many times clients form new negative thought patterns which go on to change their beliefs, actions, and behaviors. Often in a negative way. They may believe that they deserved whatever happened to them. Or that it was their fault. In the case of a soldier, they may have survivors guilt or worse. They may also form negative thought patterns about those around them, coming to see the world and the people within it as scary or evil. Among other problems.
How does hypnotherapy help?
Thought patterns are the basis of our beliefs, emotions, and ultimately, our behaviors. When you engage in negative self talk internally, its like practicing something incorrectly. While I use this example a lot, it is fairly apt. Imagine you are practicing how to ask a girl/guy out in your head. And you keep imagining what could go wrong. Ever notice that the more you do that, the more likely you are to say the wrong thing? The same is true with anything else. Our unconscious will run with the scenario we give it perfecting it, often regardless of what is best. Primarily because that is the best information it has to work on at the time.
We help change those distorted thoughts into positive ones so as to improve your future beliefs, actions, and behaviors. Reclaiming what was lost through a negative conclusion such as “I am bad/unworthy.” Replacing it with “I am good/lovable,”. Just as an example.
5. AROUSAL
Finally, trauma, especially untreated trauma, results in behavioral and functional changes in the body and mind. When we do not process emotional content it manifests itself in the physical and intellectual part of us. This can manifest as physical, psychological, or behavioral symptoms including but not limited to:
- Chronic Shock
- Pain
- Somatic or Physical Illness
- Hypervigilance
- Exaggerated Startle
- Problems Sleeping
- Problems Concentrating
- Reckless or High Risk Behaviors
How does hypnotherapy help?
Often those who suffer from trauma and PTSD wish they had the chance to act differently than they did. While it is not possible to change what happened in the past, those feelings can be dealt with in hypnosis. Trauma is rooted in the body. In the inability to take action when we freeze or in the aftermath of something we’ve done.
It is helpful to understand the arousal symptoms when trying to heal the whole of an individual. These symptoms are the body’s way of getting our attention. They are also a reflection of stuck traumatic responses. If you can get the body and the mind to move past those responses, you can then more easily process the emotional content and release it.
During a session I never tell someone not to move. In fact, I actively tell them during the induction to take any movements that make them more uncomfortable or helps them to process what is happening. Within their mind they can face those situations again defending themselves, or dong what they wished they had done in the first place. While this may not seem helpful to some, trust me, it can be a release to get to do so, even if its just within the confines of our own minds. It can be monumental in releasing trauma and moving on towards their life, dreams and aspirations.
Move On From PTSD
If you feel that hypnotherapy might help you with your PTSD call us. Even if you just have a few questions feel free to reach out to us. We want to help. And regardless of where you go or what sort of intervention or service you choose, please seek help. You deserve better than the constant fear and pain of trauma and PTSD. No one, no matter what they have done or not done, deserves to feel that way their entire lives.
And to the brave soldiers out there who make our freedoms possible. Please seek help if you need it. Reach out to your local VA, a counselor, or a hypnotist. Let us give back a part of what we owe you for the great service you have provided us as a country. Let us help you heal and move on. Thank you for your service.
Happy Veterans Day!
