Ways to deal with PTSD

Find ways to release.

Ways to deal with PTSD

Steve Andreas

“Always get your patients to do things.”
—Milton Erickson

Taking Action

I recently read about some research that found that saying “Ow!”

or pushing a button increased tolerance to pain, but that simple relaxation

or hearing a recording of themselves or someone else saying “Ow!” made no difference.

The researchers concluded that making some kind of vocal utterance

may be an effective way of coping with pain, and they described this as “distraction.”

However, I have a different interpretation of the results of this study.

If pushing a button works as well as saying “Ow,” that clearly indicates

that a larger category of behavior than vocalization is the key, namely taking some kind of action.

It may not matter what the action is, or whether it is effective — only that the person is engaged

in some kind of activity in an attempt to cope with the situation causing the pain.

This may result in “distraction,” but I think it is different than simply attending to something

other than the pain. Many people who have been badly injured in an accident feel little or no pain while actively attending to other injured people or coping with the situation

— until they stop what they are doing.

Someone else responded to the article, describing the effect as “releasing the feeling,”

but I think that is also misleading, implying that a feeling is something tangible

that can be held onto or released, rather than an important signal.

The purpose of having pain or discomfort in response to noxious events is to alert us

to take corrective action to protect the body. Saying “Ow” is an action taken to alert others

and often to solicit their help; species that don’t help each other don’t cry for help,

because it would do them no good. Once the action commences, there is no need for the pain signal, and it makes sense to focus attention on the action being taken.

I once knew someone who had been in the Peace Corps in Micronesia.

Walking on the beach, she got a nasty injury from a fishbone in her foot.

The natives immediately got a mango and a knife, and told her to stab the mango with the knife

to reduce the pain. I don’t think you have to use a knife or a mango,

but taking some kind of action — particularly if it mimics the mechanism of pain,

in this case stabbing in the same way that the fishbone did — can make a difference.

Action and PTSD

Now let’s explore how this may be relevant to the resolution of PTSD.

In a terrifying experience, there are 3 fundamental categories of response, fight, flight, or freeze. 

The first two are actions, and whether or not they are effective, they appear to protect against PTSD. However, freezing is the absence of action, and those who freeze are most likely to suffer PTSD later.

For over nine years I was an emergency “first responder” for our rural volunteer fire department, responding to accidents and medical emergencies as well as fighting fires.

Quite often I would arrive on the scene to find someone unmoving, staring into space,

not able to do anything in response to what had happened.

They surely had read about accidents and emergencies, but they had never thought

it could happen to them, so they were totally unprepared, frozen.

The broader message is that being prepared to do something in a terrifying situation is important. Undoubtedly there are a few situations in which doing nothing is the best — or the only — option. 

But generally speaking, doing something — even if it’s not the best thing —

at least has the possibility of coping with a difficult situation. It will usually have a better chance

than doing nothing, and it will probably protect from developing PTSD later.

Flashback Memories

When someone has PTSD, a “flashback” memory is usually understood to be a terrifying one. 

However a flashback can also be to a memory with more positive emotions,

as described in Wikipedia:

“A flashbulb memory is a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid ‘snapshot’ of the moment

and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential

(or emotionally arousing) news was heard.”

“A flashback, or involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon

in which an individual has a sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience

or elements of a past experience. These experiences can be happy, sad, exciting,

or any other emotion. The term is used particularly when the memory is recalled involuntarily, 

and/or when it is so intense that the person ‘relives’ the experience,

unable to fully recognize it as memory and not something that is happening in ‘real time.’ ”

Some time ago I started thinking about positive flashback memories,

wondering what we might learn from them that we could apply

to the resolution of negative flashbacks. Let’s start with a few examples.

Positive Flashback Memories

1. When I was in my mid-20’s, living in the San Francisco Bay area, I did a lot of sailing on the bay

in a 14’ boat. One afternoon I was far out on the bay, happily “planing” in which the boat skims across the surface of the water, going much faster than usual. My toes were hooked under the lip

of the centerboard housing, and most of the rest of my body “hiked out” to balance the boat,

as shown in the photo below.

And then my toes slipped, and I tumbled backward into the water.

Now, a half-century later, I still have a vivid snapshot of the moment

when I was about 3 feet under the surface of the water,

looking up at an oval of sky framed by a transparent wall of water all around it,

just before the water closed in over my body.

I am laughing uncontrollably at the shift from supreme confidence and skill to utter chagrin.

2. One afternoon in fall, I walked out on our back deck and saw a large black bear

about 20 feet up in the ash tree about 25 feet away from me.

Another 25 feet away was my wife, Connirae, who was leaning down to check our tomato plants, obviously not aware of the bear. I thought she ought to know about it, so I called out her name.

My voice frightened the bear, which slid quickly down the trunk of the tree

and rushed away from me—and directly toward Connirae.

Connirae stood up and turned toward me to see what I was calling about—and there was the bear, charging directly toward her, only a few feet away.

Before Connirae had time to recognize it was a bear, she was looking into its eyes,

which were also looking right at her. It looked terrified,

and Connirae felt instant compassion for the poor creature, rather than fear.

3. Walking up a narrow rocky trail from a delightful swim in the clear creek at the bottom

of the canyon. I suddenly found myself about 3 feet to the right of the trail

where I had been walking. Only then did I become aware of the rattlesnake coiled right in the trail, which was now to my left. I was very alert, but not afraid.

I walked around to get past the snake and continued up the trail.

In the first example, I was able to have an enjoyable response because of my knowledge

and experience. I knew how to swim, and I also knew that since I had released the rope

that held the sail, the boat would immediately head into the wind and drift slowly,

so that I could easily swim to it, get in, and continue sailing.

Someone without this knowledge probably would have been terrified of drowning,

but I had only the surprise of being unceremoniously dunked.

In the second example, Connirae saw a relevant aspect of the rushing bear

that most people might not have noticed, so she had an unusually resourceful response

in what would otherwise have been a very scary experience.

By the time Connirae realized it was a bear, it had dropped on its haunches, skidded to a stop,

and turned 90 degrees to run away from her. She was thankful that the bear saw her

before she saw the bear, because “The bear became afraid before I had a chance to.”

In the last example I must have unconsciously seen the rattlesnake and taken appropriate action, long before my conscious mind caught up with what was happening.

I had a lot of experience with rattlesnakes from my childhood on a ranch in Arizona,

so I knew what to do, and no thinking or deciding was necessary.

In the first example, my knowledge and experience protected me from terror,

in the second, Connirae’s perception protected her,

and in the third, my perception and action protected me.

It’s important to realize that in all three examples no conscious thinking or decision process

was involved. Now let’s explore how this information can be used with PTSD.

Resolving Negative Flashback Memories

When someone has a terrifying flashback experience, they are always back inside the experience, reliving it, re-experiencing the feelings that they had in the original.

The first thing to do is teach them how to re-view the same experience in a different way,

namely as an outside observer watching themselves go through it.

(This process is probably very familiar to most readers of this blog,

demonstrated in an 8-minute video on YouTube, made over 30 years ago.

This process is also demonstrated in a 14-minutevideo with an Iraq vet.)

After this process, the client has a neutral emotional response to the flashback memory.

Although this process resolves the memory by eliminating the terror,

it doesn’t teach someone how to respond more resourcefully to any future repetition

of the terrifying event. If something similar to the flashback event were to happen in the future,

they would be just as unprepared as they were the first time.

Creating a More Positive Alternative Scenario

If we create an alternative movie in which we respond more resourcefully,

and rehearse it in our imagination, that can prepare us for any potential repetition

of a troublesome event. The primary purpose of this is to program us with alternate ways

to cope with a similar event if it were to occur in the future.

We will also feel more secure about our capability in the present,

but that is a secondary benefit. The instruction for creating a new scenario is fairly simple,

but certain criteria need to be met for it to be really effective.

Selecting, Eliciting, and Rehearsing a New Response

“I want you to recall the event that was terrifying. 

Without directly changing anything external to you,

how could you respond differently to lessen the negative impact of that event, neutralize it,

or possibly even make it positive? This could include any additional preparation, knowledge, understanding, perception, or action that is within your control. 

The goal is to make you more resourceful and empowered in responding to that kind of event

in case something like it ever happens to you again.

“Here are some examples of what I mean. You already know that something like this

could happen to you, so that knowledge is already one kind of preparation.

You also know that you survived that event, so that is additional preparation for any repetition. Instead of tensing up just before the crash, you could relax instead,

so that your body is more supple and less likely to be injured.

You could raise your arm to ward off the assailant’s blow to protect your head.

You could smile at the mugger and ask him for the time, hoping that might puzzle and distract him. You could deliberately misunderstand what someone else said.

You could perceive the signs that warn you of danger, or refuse an invitation,

avoiding the event altogether.

“A thorough search of alternative actions will usually turn up many, many possibilities,

and some of the most uncommon or bizarre ones may be the most useful

in changing the impact of that situation. If your creativity runs down,

ask others for help in generating additional possibilities. After an extensive search,

you may still conclude that doing nothing was actually the best option in that situation.

If so, make freezing into a choice, rather than a default—something that you do,

rather than the absence of doing.

“When you have identified something that you could do differently,

create a scenario of you doing that in the context, with you inside the movie,

looking out from your own eyes as the event unfolds. As you imagine doing something different,

it is fine if that changes the situation indirectly—for instance someone else involved

may respond differently to what you did differently.

“If you were to imagine a scenario in which external events are directly changed

(for instance, a rescuer enters the scene, or the assailant does something different on his own, etc.) since those changes are not under your control, they would be useless in any future repetition

of the event. Furthermore, changing external events implies that you are not able to influence

the situation yourself, the opposite of empowerment.

“If you make a change that is within your control (such as refusing an offer of a ride home)

that may change external events through changed consequences (no rape/assault).

This is a legitimate and very useful change, especially if is based on specific sensory warning cues that were available but that you ignored in the original event.

“In his really excellent book, The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker teaches assault victims

what cues to search for in the original event, in order to protect themselves from a future repetition. After doing this with a woman who was brutally raped, and barely escaped being murdered,

she said something like, ‘You know, it’s funny, but I feel safer now than I did before the assault.’

“When you have created a new scenario that changes the impact of an event, test it in your imagination to be sure that it has the desired effect, and find out if you can improve it in any way. Then create at least two additional alternative scenarios — the more the better — and test them in your experience, to be sure they are effective in reducing the negative impact of the event.”

Carefully rehearsing a variety of more positive alternative scenarios in this way prepares you

to respond resourcefully with unconscious choices. When done thoroughly, this prepares you

to respond to any repetition with a variety of actions for coping with a difficult situation,

reduce its harmful impacts, and at the very least it should protect you from a recurrence of PTSD.

http://realpeoplepress.com/blog/

 Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blog:

www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com    for extra TCR information

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Arthritis, is its inception in your mind?

She is decorating my former Tudor home. The Tudor period stretched from 1485 to 1603

You see what you expect to see, yet in reality she is a mop head.

Arthritis, is its inception in your mind? M'reen Hunt

Unpalatable though it is, there is a theory that everything that happens to us, both the physical and emotional pain we experience is a result of the way in which we perceive and subsequently inter-react with our personal world. Those who accept transgenerational and past life influences extend this possibility, and may also include the choices we may make to aid our spiritual development. All of these influences can be described in some way as coming from within us and affect our perceptions of events and the result of those understandings.

Remember that this also is the basis of our good qualities and experiences.

It must be added that further to this, some would accept the external influences of attached entities that is earthbound spirits etc. There is also the thought that as DNA strives to generate a uniform but unique body, so that body also has a blueprint for perfect physical health and in addition to this is a spirit that strives for perfect spiritual growth.

                                                                                                                                                                      

When I was a child I used to wander how the milk of magnesia we were dosed with knew what it was supposed to be curing this time. For another family the magical potion  was a Beacham’s powder and I used Minidex with my eldest child.

How is it possible that these medications might work universally? Well, physically I suppose, they may or may not have provided some useful ingredient that helped or at least did not hinder healing at that time. In practice their main effect may have been similar to the kiss that makes everything better, both for the kisser and the kissee.

I have been told that a company increased the lighting on the shop floor and productivity went up, but eventually levelled off and returned to its previous level. So, they returned the lighting to its original level and productivity went up. The conclusion drawn was that the workers felt cared for and responded accordingly.

This is a little like the police using smiles, kit-kats or fried sardines to anticipate a positive outcome with potentially troublesome groups of people. The smiles were Dutch, the kit-kats were given by the English and the sardines belonged to the Portuguese police.

 What has all this to do with arthritis and hypnotherapy?

Patience, I’m getting there.

There are the physical aspects of arthritis and associated conditions to be considered in just the same way as a broken leg is a broken leg and is more appropriately treated in a hospital setting. However, hypnotherapy can help speed up the healing of that leg and make the healing process much more comfortable. I have read that the arthritic fingers with gold rings are less severely affected than the opposite fingers that are ring free and I’ve also read that certain supplements can be beneficial. The first appears to be an entirely physical outcome while the second could rely on the advantages of the placebo effect. Or maybe the rings and supplements have both a physical and emotional effect, science will tell, eventually.

I will offer five examples that indicate to me that it could be advisable to check the emotional component of a concern as well as the physical.

1.  One lady had an impressive collection of gloves, because she always had cold hands. We found that she had a childhood memory of having mislaid her gloves and enduring a very cold playtime. With the appropriate re framing (or re-understanding and accepting) of that incident her hands now are just as warm or as cold as the hands of others.

2.  Each time I returned to England, within days I got pains in my knees that vanished when I returned to my mountain home in the US. Later, living in the UK for seven unhappy months, the pain in my knees was accompanied by a dull swelling ache in my hands. My hands returned to normal with the salty warmth of the Mediterranean, but my knees insisted on continuing to twinge. In Marbella I met a hypnotherapist who told me that this was because I couldn’t run away from something. I thought, ‘How ridiculous, what do I want to run away from?’ I later joined a group he had formed and during the induction (the relaxing into trance bit) he invited us to progressively relax our bodies from our heads down to our toes, he then worked from our toes to our heads suggesting healing. I had had no previous experience of hypnotherapy and had no idea as to what was possible or how things might work, but when he got to my knees, I repeated the thought, ‘pain go, pain go,’ and for the next fifteen minutes or so I experienced lava lamp bubbles (of pain) float up from my knees to my thighs. When they reached my hips I experienced a little panic and wondered what to do next so I thought, ‘dissipate, dissipate,’ and that is exactly what must have happened. I experienced an occasional bubble through the evening and one or two the following morning and was completely free of any knee pain until I returned to England. The pain returned and cutting to the chase I visited a physiotherapist/hypnotherapist who told me that I was standing with my shoulder blades sticking out from my ribs. She taped my scapulas into place and I experienced a stabbing pain down my right side and knee to my ankle and found that this postural balancing removed all the knee pain.

This demonstrates the complementary value of physical and emotional therapy.

Amusingly I wondered if my scapulas sticking out were little wings so that I could fly away from my problems?

 3.  A friend has fingertips that shoot up as opposed to continuing straight and this deformation is the result of four years of ‘arthritis’. Originally, she went to her doctor as she was experiencing pain, he told her that she had arthritis and they experimented with prescriptions to find one that was suitable to her. He told her that she was destined to a wheel chair and in fact at one point she had to ask her youngest child to move her feet in bed. She had medication in every bag and in a pocket of every coat she possessed, as she could not manage more that a prescribed number of hours without medication.

One day she had a telephone conversation with her friend asked who’d diagnosed her condition and was her doctor a specialist in this field, what had she been doing before she started experiencing this pain which took her to the surgery? Our friend has a phobia with Stanley knives and she had spent until the wee small hours using scissors and her knees to fit carpet in her hall, lounge, stairs and bedroom. I defy anyone unused to such activities not to wake up with painful hands and knees. That night she didn’t take her medication and hasn’t taken it since. Without that conversation she would be in a wheelchair as prescribed by her doctor.

Accepting the power of an authority figure, in this case her doctor, is one of the five entry points to the mind; the alpha state of hypnotherapy can utilise this and the other three gateways, interestingly the authority we in use hypnotherapy is the authority of yourself. The other enters points are: 3. Habit 4. Strong emotion and 5. Hero worship.   

4.  After an x-ray a doctor told me that I have osteoporosis in my neck and I understood her to say that eventually I will be in pain and that ultimately the medication will not ease this pain. There was no complementary or alternative therapeutic advice offered. Needless to say I’m not happy with an authority figure condemning me to consuming pain. Time will tell, but has not done so in the last eight years. In the mean time I can do many things to help myself. Disgusted with my doctor’s lack of support that might prevent or delay her prognosis I decided to use my skills with self-hypnosis.

I am consciously aware of three events in my life that may have been the cause of my neck condition; it is reasonable to assume that there may be an adverse emotional component attached to one or more of these physical event which caused the eventual displacement of a couple of cervical vertebrae. I relaxed into trance, but my mind didn’t follow its usual route of dumping the emotions surrounding an event pictorially, instead I experienced myself ‘physically’ moving my head into a safe position and thinking, ‘I’m safe’ and this ‘solved’ one of the three events. The result is that now I can press my hand hard onto the back of my head without discomfort whereas for many years I have not been able to put my hand close to the back of my head without experiencing discomfort. Now all I have to do is melt away the build up of calcified salts and restore my vertebrae to optimum alignment and I’m home free! However, I’ve not actively worked on this.

5.  I read the following in a book; apparently a lady was refused an operation on her spine as it was deemed to be too dangerous.  She then went to see a past life therapist and while in trance she had a this-life experience. When she was a young child her father had run amok with an axe killing his family. During this time she had crouched down behind the toilet door; her father had pushed open the door but fortunately he never looked behind it. When the healing of this event had been achieved her back uncurled from that terrified crouching position. I have no idea if this was instantly or her back uncurled over a period of weeks or years.

With the exception of the last one, I have given you personal trivial to serious examples of the unconscious physical manifestation of emotional trauma or expectations.

I welcome your experiences in these areas as it is only in sharing our experiences that we can take a more holistic approach to informed self responsibility and self healing. Remember that the most important aspect of any therapeutic healing is your readiness and acceptance of that healing and your partnership with the therapy or therapist.

There are many different sorts of therapies that work with the releasing of blocked energy that expresses itself physically, emotionally or spiritually and some you will be drawn to more than others to help you remove any blocks to accepting that relief.  Hypnotherapy is one of the therapeutic interventions I use that allows direct communication with your creative inner mind; and your inner mind knows where the root of the problem is because all of your life’s experiences are stored there. When working with the body’s self healing the therapist understands that each cell

has its own intelligence and it is this body/mind/spiritual intelligence that works in concert as when dealing with the mind/body connection our thoughts are energy and our bodies respond to what we think of ourselves.

You can TCR software and engineering manuals for spontaneous recall – or pass that exam.

I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube  

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com    

All aspects of regular, each-word reading and education.

Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills significantly faster

www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               Personal business development.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com        just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”