Hypnotherapy for PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that is usually caused by experiencing a traumatic event. Whilst it is normal to feel emotional after a frightening event, if our brain is functioning as we would wish, it is then possible to quickly regain control of our emotions. It is possible to experience traumatic events that make it difficult to move on.  Using Hypnotherapy for PTSD can help you to relieve the symptoms of your condition allowing you to move forward with your life.

It’s very probable that you are reading this with a racing mind and don’t fully understand why or what you need to do to make it stop. You may well be worried about what the future holds if you can’t find calmness and peace. My goal is to always make you feel safe and secure and to support you while you make the positive changes necessary to leave your anxiety behind.

PTSD and the stress response

Brain functioning

When our brain is functioning well after we have found a place of calmness we stop producing an abundance of stress hormones and our breathing and heart rate return to normal. Unfortunately, PTSD sufferers often find it difficult to return to this calm and relaxed state.

If you had heightened stress levels at the time of experiencing or witnessing the traumatic event, then it can feel as if you become stuck in your fight/flight mode. This means that you continue to produce a stress response even though the event may have long passed. In these situations, time is unfortunately not a great healer. In fact, the longer the time period the more heightened the suffering can become.

Perhaps you are reliving your trauma in your mind and need help to move on with your life and achieve inner calm. Using hypnotherapy for PTSD can assist you to reach a place of calmness by reframing your thoughts and helping you to erase the painful memories of the past.

When your fight/flight mode is switched on it turns off the more intellectual parts of your brain. The result is that it makes it much harder to control emotions and impulses. When we lose intellectual control we are more prone to heightened responses to fear, sadness and anger. You may then become startled in response to any sound, become enraged by small frustrations or you may freeze when somebody touches you.

How Solution Focused Hypnotherapy for PTSD can help

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a type of talking therapy. During the therapy, we will focus attention on talking about some of the more positive aspects of your life. By shifting your conscious awareness to being more positive, we naturally help to lower stress and anxiety levels. This in turn lowers the production of stress hormones. When looking out for and recalling positive aspects we help to produce a constant flow of serotonin.

Higher levels of serotonin are known to have a dampening effect on the fear system, making you less likely to become aggressive or frozen in response to potential threats. Many medicines for PTSD such as Prozac work by artificially increasing serotonin levels. Using Hypnotherapy for PTSD takes a more natural, holistic approach to balancing hormone levels.

We will spend time each session discussing the aspects of your future that you feel you would like to change. With Solution Focused Hypnotherapy we always look forward. You will be encouraged to visualise and discuss your best hopes. We then use hypnosis to help you work towards attaining this wonderful picture built up in your mind.

If you are suffering from replaying the traumatic event over and over again in your mind we can use a safe and effective Neuro Linguistic Programming method to remove it. Once it has been erased we replace it with a much more positive one, helping you to move forwards with your life.

I believe that you have everything that you need within you to move forward with your life and you will be provided with all the knowledge and resources necessary to ensure that you can enjoy lifelong change. I will support you up until the point that you decide that you no longer need my help.