Overcoming Trauma

How to harness the top psychological methods to help you to move on!

As a nation we cannot but feel for those that have lost their lives in the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London. There are also many lives that have been affected by the trauma caused whether through injury, witnessing events or losing someone close.

Trauma is an experience that is unbearable, intolerable and one that we have no control over. Although I have worked with armed forces, paramedics, fire services and police over the years in helping them deal with trauma, it is not just confined to these professionals. Trauma can also be bereavement, sexual assault, violence, accidents, parents fighting - all either witnessed or experienced.

Latest Statistics:

• 31.4% adults in England have reported experiencing at least one traumatic event.
• 1 in 5 women between ages 16 to 59 have experienced some form of sexual violence.
• Each year an estimated 1.9m people in the UK suffer some form of domestic abuse.
• 182,560 people were hurt in road traffic accidents of which 13.5% were killed or severely injured in 2015/16.
• Nearly half a million adults are sexually assaulted in England and Wales each year.

Trauma leaves traces on our minds and emotions which affects our ability to experience happiness as well as impacting on our biology and immune system. 

Trauma can also be the root cause of so many other psychological problems such as eating disorders, drug taking, depression, severe anxiety, panic attacks, self harm and inability to get true meaning from life.

There are a number of ways of dealing with trauma:

• Medication - this can chemically numb the negative emotion to enable you to cope.
• Talking Therapy - support using various psychological methods to reprocess the trauma.
• Root Cause - physiological reprocessing and eliminating of the perturbation (disturbance) in the thought field.

Although I cannot help with the first of these you will need to consult your doctor for medication. I can help with reprocessing trauma both at a psychological and physiological levels whilst supporting you through the process using a range of methods including hypnotherapy.

I have worked with trauma with private clients and have trained professionals with specialist therapies to help their clients with trauma for almost 20 years. So if you want to discuss with me in more detail your situation, please call or email me.

'There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds' Laurell K. Hamilton

John Plester is the Principal Tutor of the East Anglian Institute of Hypnotherapy as well as lead consultant at Norwich Hypnotherapy Practice.