Trauma

Healing post-traumatic stress disorder

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Post-traumatic stress disorder

What is post-traumatic stress disorder? Trauma and PTSD are related to disturbing experiences of an extreme type. Examples include terrorist incident, air-line crash, assault, rape (or other sexual abuse), and natural disaster. Mild trauma may follow on from events like a (non-injurious) car accident, getting trapped in a lift, or personal accident. Exposure to such … Read more

4 Myths about PTSD and Trauma

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PTSD and trauma

What is the difference between PTSD and Trauma?

PTSD is different from Trauma, which refers simply to a disturbing experience without most of the symptoms of PTSD. The degree of subjective disturbance may differ from one person to another. Unfortunately, ‘trauma’ has become an over-used word that can refer to anything from childhood sexual abuse (which may be linked to PTSD) to a bad exam result.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that sometimes follows on from a critical incident: terrorism, airline crash, assault, rape, war incident, murder, robbery, domestic violence, etc. Common symptoms include ‘flashbacks’, nightmares, hyper-vigilance, anxiety, poor cognitive function, and insomnia.

Myths about traumatic memories and PTSD

Here are some of the most common myths about PTSD and Trauma:

  • Any horrible experience will produce symptoms of PTSD
  • You never really get over it
  • Traumatic memories are stored in the unconscious mind, and are difficult to treat
  • Treatment requires that sufferers work through the emotions that accompany traumatic memories

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Removing a traumatic memory

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traumatic memory

Working with traumatic memory

Do you have a troublesome or traumatic memory? Or Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome?

A common belief is that once you have one of these memories then you are stuck with it for life, and little can be done about it.

Recent research confirms that this is not so, and that it is possible to neutralise traumatic memories in therapy. One way to do that is to interfere with the way in which the brain accesses these memories. This is the basis for the EMDR technique which disrupts access to traumatic memories by asking subjects to keep their eyes on a moving finger while trying to recall the trauma at the same time.

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