Tag Archives: NLP Sessions

Trauma Victims

A person who has experienced a trauma is often in a victim state. This is because the incident gave them limited choices in the responses they could formulate at that particular time. They probably felt the circumstances were out of their control or perhaps trapped or in danger.

It is essential to highlight that these suggestions will only work for those whose trauma is in the past and is over. For those still living in a traumatic situation, a slightly different approach must be taken to help support that person in making new decisions about how to react in that situation now and in the future.

The trauma victim must be able to feel safe and secure at any time during the work you do together. This is because of the risk of abreaction during your therapeutic processes. A resource anchor can effectively get the client into a positive and resourceful state quickly and easily. However, you must be sure that the intensity of the resource anchor is significantly more potent than any potential traumatic emotion that might show up during the sessions you have together.

It is crucial to encourage the client to understand their role in shaping their thoughts and emotions. Recognise that the unfortunate event took place in the past and was indeed very distressing. It’s important to realise that the event itself is over, and what remains is the memory of it impacting the nervous system. The client is now perpetuating these thoughts and emotions rather than being controlled by external forces.

Alongside this crucial aspect, conveying your message with sensitivity is essential, ensuring that the client doesn’t feel blamed for their thoughts and emotions. This approach is counterproductive. Instead, focus on empowering language, emphasising concepts like “taking control now” and “choosing which emotions to embrace and when to experience them.”

Some therapists possess a unique X factor beyond NLP or Hypnosis training. It’s the ability to shift someone’s perspective completely with a simple reframe. Have you ever experienced that “Aha!” moment when your whole thinking changes in an instant? It’s a powerful skill, but it must be used wisely and with the client’s comfort in mind.

I recall working with a man who had suffered abuse as a child from another child. He often expressed his hatred for the abuser and how they had ruined his life. I tried to help him see the abuser in a different light, but it only made him more convinced of their evilness. When I asked him who he thought was abusing the abuser, he was shocked and defensive. However, after sharing some facts about abused children becoming abusers, it started to shift his perspective.

Hypnosis offers numerous advantages for addressing trauma. One effective method is regression, which allows clients to uncover details about their traumatic experiences that they may have overlooked. This newfound awareness can provide a fresh perspective when recalling the event in the future and allows for the possibility of re-experiencing the situation more constructively—expressing thoughts or actions that could have transformed the event into a less painful memory.

Additionally, hypnosis plays a crucial role in fostering tranquillity and alleviating the negative emotions tied to past experiences. This process also opens the door to instilling positive affirmations that clients can draw upon later. Clients need to practice these new positive tools. When they realise that the trauma belongs to the past and now only resides in their minds, it brings a sense of relief. However, it’s important to acknowledge that similar events may arise in their lives again. Clients must feel assured that they can approach any future trauma differently in a way that empowers them rather than re-traumatises them. This transformation can also occur during hypnosis.

 

By Gemma Bailey
www.hypnotherapyandnlp.co.uk

Taking On Other People’s Problems (and how to avoid it)

People automatically and without realising it, become very talented at moving their
problems through time, space and energy. You might know someone, we all do, who is
particularly good at generalising and stating that things always work out this way, or
everybody does this or that.

We all do generalise, it is part of the filtering that our mind generates in order for us to
get rid of information that comes into our mind that it is not relevant to us, or not
important to us.

Despite these generalisations sometimes being inaccurate (because it’s probably not
everybody, it’s probably not always) we continue to use this kind of language for ease in
our communication. But is it causing us problems sometimes?

Do these generalisations trip us up sometimes? Do they trip us up when we are using
them in our own language or perhaps when we believe the generalisations of others? If
this is a problem you experience, it might be worth getting some hypnotherapy or NLP
sessions to help you with this.

Those who generalise are being inaccurate some of the time because they continue to
apply the rules to all occasions, painting their generalisation paint brush over a greater
space than the original image and blurring the edges of the picture of reality. So,
generalisations do distort things for us. Although it does make our communication much
faster.

Perhaps you know someone (and if you don’t then it is probably you!) who moves
problems from the past onto others. They like to share their story. To share their pain,
zap their own energy and quite possibly zap yours at the same time too.

So, a classic example of this could be. I have a terrible headache today. You know what
it is like when your head is just pounding and you start to feel sick and as soon as you
hear the words, well you know what it’s like. Unless you are an absolute ninja in mind
voodoo then you start trying on the pain mentioned to see if you see if you do know how
it feels to have that pounding headache. When you do that you’re probably not getting
yourself into a particularly good state. This is not a useful thing for you to do. So, it
means the person you are communicating with has very effectively moved their own pain
through space, through time, out of them and into you. NLP strategies can protect you
form this.

Now to be fair, of course, you do always have choices about whether you decide to pick
up that pain and ‘try it on’ and to avoid doing so, you will need to become a bit more
self-aware. Some of it comes from you being a better listener, instead of just nodding
your head in the right places and falling into their state with them. You don’t have to
take other people’s pain on. If for example, I have a pen and I give you that pen and say
here I have a pen for you as a gift please take it and I give it to you and you take it. Who
owns the pen? Of course, you do, you own the pen, I just gave it to you.

Now, if that pen was my anger, or my aches and pains, or my sadness and I came to you
and said here, here is my sadness, let me tell you all about it. I want to give you this
information as a gift and you take it and make yourself feel sad then it’s your problem.

So, remember you do have the opportunity and you do have the option to say, ‘no thank
you I do not want your gifts!’ Be aware of the people who do that to you, who you do
that to, and that problems can be moved through energy. They can be moved from one
person to the next, to the next. It’s a bit like laughter, it’s contagious. But that’s a very
good thing, but sometimes so is misery and that is not a good thing at all.

The Hypnotherapy and NLP Clinic provides Hypnotherapists and NLP coaches in
Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Coventry to help with the
management of stress, anxiety and depression.

For more information about our free consultations and sessions, contact us on 0203
6677294

By Gemma Bailey
www.hypnotherapyandnlp.co.uk