Hypnotherapy for trauma
Hypnotherapy can treat a wide range of symptoms. With trauma, the more intense the load of traumatic memories and associated emotional pain that one carries, the more painful it is to exist in the present moment.
In hypnotherapy we seek to understand the root pain underlying an issue and the protective strategy that the subconscious has been employing in response to that pain.
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No matter what you require, Birmingham Hypnotherapy provides a safe, effective and powerful way for you to move beyond your difficulties, achieve your goals and unlock your true potential.
What is trauma?
Trauma is any negative experience that is overwhelming. While small negative experiences can be processed by the psyche, overwhelming negative experiences are beyond the psyche’s ability to process. As such, these experiences get “shelved” in the mind, frozen in time, left for future processing. Until they are actively processed, the mind does not process traumatic memories into the long-term memory; rather, these memories stay in the consciousness as a present experience.
Carrying trauma
Carrying trauma means some level of the self continues to experience the negative experience. Trauma can remain dormant in the background for years, triggered when a “reasonably similar” event or situation presents itself. When something is reasonably similar, it is “resonant” with the original event and reminds the psyche of the original event. We might say that the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between the original trauma and this present event that is similar in some way. Thus, the subconscious reacts as though the original experience is happening once again in the present moment and the symptoms of trauma present themselves.
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Due to the “overwhelm” component, trauma is nearly always imbued with a feeling of powerlessness and lack of control in relation to the negative event. This deeply undermines the individual’s sense of personal power, control and safety.
Treating trauma with hypnotherapy
The goal is to:
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Process the trauma in to the long-term memory.
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Integrate the experience so that it can be held as your inner narrative (story) of your life with appropriate meaning and context.
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Restore your sense of personal power, control over your experience and your safety.​
Transformational Hypnotherapy is a powerful approach and methodology to both resolve prior traumas and to cultivate resilience. Hypnotherapy addresses both the “negative” and “overwhelming” aspects of trauma, while also allowing for the meeting of the “unmet needs” from traumatic memories.
Since hypnosis allows the mind to be more receptive to new ideas, some events categorized as “negative” can be reframed to “positive” or neutral. The non-linear, non-rational aspect of the subconscious mind allows for paradox, and allows for multiple layers of meaning to coexist. Therefore, even if an event has a clear negative aspect, a “silver lining” positive aspect can be cultivated in parallel. When the new "positive" aspect is well developed and intensely focused upon in hypnosis, along with a strong focus on healing the original core emotional pain, it changes the emotional relationship to the event and essentially neutralizes the “negative” association.