Lancashire Hypnosis

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a disorder that can develop following a traumatic event that threatens your safety or makes you feel helpless. Most people associate PTSD with battle-scarred soldiers – and military combat is the most common cause – but any overwhelming life experience can trigger PTSD, especially if the event is perceived as unpredictable and uncontrollable.

PTSD can also be seen in anyone who has been involved or has witnessed an experience that is so frightening, so overwhelming, and so beyond our control, such as a car crash, a violent crime or witness to an accident, attrocity or natural disaster.

As well as affecting those who personally experienced the catastrophe and those who witnessed it. It also can affect those who pick up the pieces afterwards, including medical staff, police and fire officers. It can even occur in the friends or family members of those who went through the actual trauma.

Most people given time can get over this trauma without help. However for some people, a traumatic experience can set off a reaction that can last for months and years, and they may begin to re-experience that horrible occurence in the form of memories, flashbacks, nightmares or hallucinations. In some cases it can be a sound that trigger these memories, causing them to believe they are back there reliving the traumatic events again.

If untreated, PTSD can persist for years, and anything in the environment can remind the person of the traumatic experience and cause a reaction, and in some cases may lead onto other problems, such as depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

PTSD Treatment

Treating PTSD may in some cases be slower compared to working with other issues and traumas. However, with hypnotherapy progress can be made to help release the person from this nightmare by breaking the link between the event and the present day, and to help the subconscious mind deal with the event, and ultimately to see the triggers for what they really are, simply sounds, rather than a switch that recreates the fear reaction.

If you went through a traumatic experience and are having trouble getting back to your regular life and reconnecting to others, then contact me to find out how hypnotherapy can help release you to live a full and proper life. Call me on 01772 499046 or email me by clicking "here".