PTSD and the demons that hide within us

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is becoming more prevalent in our society as life traumas and life events becoming more harrowing. What can we do to help people with PTSD?

Well after 13 years service in the Army and events I rather forget, but it's not that simple as they are always there in the attic of the mind. They seem to just wait till we are low... then they come out to get us, from the darkest corners of our mind. They seem like they will never go and that we must endure them until a miracle happens to take the incident away. 

But in reality that is not the case, I personally carried the events of war for 15 years till my path took me to train as a hypnotherapist and I came across something miraculous. It was during the training when we built up to regression, my fear of going back to that incident terrified me. I have been getting the nightmares of the event for years and it got worse with the added stress The self-medication of alcohol so that I could just go into a deep slumber, only worked for a brief period of time.

Then the realisation of the alcohol, which can become a crutch, is actually a depressant and can lower one deeper into the hole that you think you're in. So, during my training, we covered content free regression and we had to experience it and practice on each other. When it was my turn, I was very nervous and thought that I would freak out or break the walls down trying to run away. But during the process as these feelings started to build in me, rather than fighting them, I started to let them go. This caused a massive shift in me and I came out of trance and felt as if a massive weight had been lifted from me.

I finally, through hypnosis managed to process the emotion attached to the memory that I couldn't deal with and this is what had caused my PTSD. Once processed, the emotion can change the content of the memory and you can allow the issues to go.

It can be complicated for treatment of PTSD. But I believe that if you get to the root cause and then build resources in, you can then use content free regression to process the initial event. This can allow shifts in the unconscious mind to allow the client to let the event go. If it's a complicated case with many layers, it can be used like an onion and peeling back the event layer by layer.

The hardest thing is getting the client to a point where they have the resources to go through the regression and then, the process can be quite disturbing to therapist. But if an abreaction occurs, it should be utilised to the benefit of the therapy session.

PTSD is one of the more complicated cases to work with as each client is different and the triggers are individual, but with resource and a methodical approach, they can be helped.

Hypnotherapy can help PTSD in many ways, from building in resources to helping revisit the traumatic event. But personally, I think the most powerful therapy is content free regression. Because this is all an internal process... the client does not have to externalise the trauma, thus giving it more energy.

So if you have been suffering with PTSD for a long time, why not try hypnosis... you may be surprised what can be achieved.