Hypnosis for treating Post Traumatic Stress disorder (PTSD) can be very successful and help you recover fast. You may even get health fund rebates
As a registered clinical hypnotherapist (AHA), psychotherapist and mental health professional (PACFA) I have used this method successfully in my clinics for 30 years.
You can be assured you are in experienced professional hands. I am the author of the Amazon number 1 best seller Inspiration for Survive and Prosper: Personal Transformation Out of Crisis. I am also a survivor of PTSD.
In a systemic review study published by Rotaru and Rusu in 2016 it was found that hypnosis showed strong results for recovery from PTSD with longer lasting effects.
Dr Tracie O’Keefe DCH with her number 1 Amazon best-selling book Inspiration for Survive and Prosper in which she chronicles her own experiences of PTSD and her program for overcoming it.
What is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
This is a most debilitating condition where, after encountering a traumatic event in your past, you become dysfunctional because those images, sounds and feelings haunt you.
It can affect people who were in car crashes, subject to violence, mental or sexual abuse, soldiers in battle or first responder stress.
You feel out of control which gives rise to sudden panic attacks where you freeze, become terrified, want to run away and may even feel suicidal.
PTSD can happen at any time of your life unexpectedly or without warning. There will be certain triggers or events that set off episodes.
How do I know I am suffering from PTSD?
Are you suddenly being besieged by out-of-control panic?
Do you find yourself suddenly being haunted by one or more past traumas?
Are you waking up at night in absolute fear?
You will find yourself feeling totally out of control and frightened. It’s as if you’re stuck in a nightmare and can’t escape, no matter what you do.
This can happen for hours, days and in some cases years. You become so dysfunctional you may not be able to work, hold down a relationship or even leave your home.
You may experience sleeplessness, nightmares, high anxiety, panic attacks, depression, irrational behaviours, erratic temperament, dissociation, derealisation and loss of social skills.
What is simple and complex trauma?
In simple trauma you will be regressing to one particular time that was so stressful for you that you cannot process it and on move with life.
At the time of the event, you may even have coped well but later you react to the event as having been highly stressful and traumatising.
In complex trauma several traumatic events have been joined together in your unconscious mind. Some of them you may not be consciously aware of, even when you panic.
When a trigger sets off your PTSD, the trauma from each event joins together all at the same time and your nervous system goes into overload, debilitating you.
Other people won’t understand what is happening to you
When an episode is triggered, other people cannot see how your perception of reality has suddenly and uncontrollably changed.
They tell you to “Pull yourself together”, or to take an antidepressant or sleeping pill or even think you are faking your symptoms for some kind of personal gain.
They may be concerned but they do not know what to do. They’re not sure whether to try to intervene or step away and give you space.
Some people with PTSD become violent and highly aggressive as a form of defensiveness, so people can also become afraid of you and what you might do next.
My own journey
As a child both my parents had mental health issues, were abusive and abandoned me so I ended up homeless and living on the street as a young teenager. At the time I was in survival mode and handled whatever came my way as even children can when faced with horrific circumstances.
I lived part of my childhood in a series of institutions which were so bad they were eventually all closed down and sued after a series of public enquiries. I also had to cope with a number of medical issues for which it was hard to get any help at all.
Later in life, after a family crisis I developed full-blown PTSD. Ironically at the time I treated patients for the very condition and had no idea it would happen to me.
So, I had to take my own medicine, do everything I taught patients and I recovered. As a therapist I knew logically I could recover; however, it was hypnosis that helped me recover fast.
Why hypnotherapy is so effective in recovery
PTSD is an autonomic behavioural response to a perceived danger. In other words, it is totally out of conscious control where the defence part of your brain kicks in instead of the logical neo cortex.
During trauma your brain can become scarred and your normal adaptive mechanisms that help you move on in life fail. Your brain keeps fusing and instead of logical responses, you revert to defensive mechanisms.
During hypnosis I suggest and get you to do the work to create a workaround so your brain re-routes to the neo cortex, setting up new resourceful reactions to those traumas.
We are reprogramming your responses to stress and updating them so you can process the trauma and move on with your life fast.
Because I’m also a psychotherapist and clinical naturopath, I teach you new ways to help you make the physical changes needed to overcome PTSD. It’s a holistic approach as you are a whole person and everything works together.
Disconnecting the panic response with hypnosis
PTSD is all about the panic response as you will know from your own experience. That can only happen when the brain is in high beta wave activity (which is really quick brainwave activity).
The beauty of hypnosis is that we can change the brainwave activity, bringing it down to alpha and delta (much slower) wave cycles and keep you there during the hypnotic trance.
Panic cannot occur during lower brainwave activity so while you are in this state, we are able to help you process the unfinished trauma and move on with your life. So, during the trance we interrupt the PTSD patterns and redirect you to more resourceful brain subroutines.
This quickly allows you to have better day-to-day experiences and more control of your thoughts, behaviours, actions and emotions.
