Recovering from a Trauma
Have you ever felt traumatised?
Trauma, post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are anxiety responses caused by experiencing or witnessing frightening events. You will probably have heard of PTSD in relation to war and combat, but it is also
common after any awful experience. For example, a serious road accident, a natural disaster, a medical emergency, a terrorist attack, a violent assault, rape, mugging or burglary, or witnessing any of the above, could all bring on
post-traumatic stress. It can develop after any situation where you felt extreme fear or helplessness.
Someone who is traumatised may feel emotionally numb to begin with, but later they will often continually relive the traumatic event through nightmares, intrusive images and vivid flashbacks, and they may experience feelings of
intense distress, irritability, isolation and guilt. Sleep patterns become disturbed and concentration dips. They may also become hyper-vigilant and are easily startled or panicked. Sufferers may try to avoid further distress by keeping busy and avoiding places and situations that remind them of the trauma.
REWIND is one of the newest and most exciting techniques to put an end to post traumatic stress for most people. It is fast and efficient – and I am fully trained and certified to use it. It works by providing you with a mental ‘box’into which traumatic memories can be locked away, and only you have the key. Once locked, the flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive thoughts and images disappear. Recall due to triggers such as places, people, smells, sounds,
seasons, etc, also cease.
I believe REWIND works by helping you move the traumatic experience into a different area of your brain. To explain: say your brain is divided into active and passive areas; you are using the active bit now reading this, but there is a
huge passive area out of your consciousness where your lasting memories are stored. Your experiences go into the active section first and then move into the memory area, leaving you clear to function in the here-and-now. However, when we experience a life threatening event, the structures in our brain which guard the entrance to the memory bank (the amygdala and hippocampus) aren’t able to process the experience adequately and block the traumatic event from passing through. This means the experience stays front-of-mind and you will be left trying to cope in other ways, such as by keeping busy, concentrating on other things and avoiding all situations that may remind you of the trauma. This works reasonably well until some tiny thing like a smell, or a scene on TV, reminds you of the horror and sets you off again.
The Rewind Technique is a talking therapy and involves a specific guided visualisation technique led by your therapist. It usually only takes one session to move the traumatic event past the ‘guard’ and into your memory bank. You can
then move on, because you are back in control and can decide whether you wish to recall the event or not, just as you would with any other memory. If you do decide to revisit the traumatic event, you can unlock it with the key – your own
choice – and know that when you are finished it will go back into its mental box.
