"At this point in human history virtually everyone is affected by trauma to one degree or another."
"The subconscious mind can perpetuate, amplify, and recycle trauma indefinitely."
"Regardless of how inaccurate, unhelpful and even unhealthy they may be, our beliefs and expectations about trauma can have a profound impact on our actual experience of trauma."
"Many people believe and expect that the effects of trauma can never be completely eradicated."
Psychological Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
After a person experiences a
stress of any kind that is severe enough to overwhelm
his usual abilities to cope effectively, he can develop certain psychological, emotional,
and/or physical symptoms as a consequence. This is the definition of psychological
trauma. Put another way, when you are traumatized your mind can form
habits that
cause a great deal of distress for a very long time. These habits can be intolerably
annoying, frustrating, debilitating-and highly resistant to change.
Examples of events that can cause trauma are: child or adult sexual abuse, including
rape; every kind of physical violence, including military combat; childhood or adult
bullying and abuse; terrifying situations like robbery and being held hostage; the
fear of impending trauma and extreme stress; emotional violence and harshness; mass
group horrors, like terrorist attacks and genocide; sudden or unexpected experiences
of loss; and natural disasters.
For a person to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, it isn't necessary for
her to be physically involved in a traumatic event. She can develop PTSD symptoms
after witnessing an overwhelming event, by knowing someone who experienced such
an event, or even from finding out and hearing about such an event, if these experiences
feel traumatic to her. Everyone reacts somewhat differently. At this point in human
history virtually everyone is affected by trauma to one degree or another. We are
all aware of the geopolitical upheavals, geological disasters such as earthquakes,
tidal waves, and flooding, violence, poverty, and a growing sense of danger around
the globe due to terrorism.
Symptoms of PTSD
There are numerous symptoms of PTSD. They can include eating, sleeping, and digestive
problems; vivid intrusive and disturbing memories accompanied by strong emotional
reactions; anxiety in its many forms; personal and professional relationship disturbances,
such as isolating from others; complicated or protracted
grief; feeling emotionally
numb or experiencing a diminished or limited range of emotions; unexplained irritability,
anger, or depressiveness; hyper vigilance; changes in the ability to focus or to
be attentive; changes in the ability to do your job adequately; changes in nervous
system or physiological activity, such as an overactive startle response; hyper-reactivity
to people or situations; avoidance of certain people, places, objects, topics of
conversation, or memories and thoughts that touch on or seem connected with the
traumatic incidents and events; and a complete spectrum of health issues, physical
symptoms, and medical disorders. The anxiety and stress of trauma can affect all
aspects of life.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Subconscious Mind
The symptoms of trauma can begin to arise soon-even immediately-after the trauma,
or later-or both-and they can continue developing over years, even over a lifetime,
due to the continual triggering and recycling of traumatic memories, associations
and experiences. Triggering and recycling can occur whenever something reminds the
person of any aspect of an unresolved traumatic event, even if he is not consciously
aware of having been reminded.
The person may have a negative reaction to situations that resemble the traumatic
situation, to people who resemble a person connected with the remembered event,
or to objects, settings, places and even a date, time of year or season of the year
that has become connected by the mind with the original event. People who suffer
from "seasonal affective disorder" are depressed during the wintertime, especially
at Christmastime; people who experience the "anniversary effect" feel depressed
on the annual date of an unresolved loss.
A person might become fearful of all elevators after being stuck in one that malfunctioned;
someone else might be frightened of all men after being abused by a man, or of women
after being abused by a woman; a person might associate all white coats with a single
negative experience with a doctor. Often benign, harmless or even positive objects,
experiences, body parts, physical sensations, places, people, and environmental
conditions may come to trigger a negative association and a reflexive response following
psychological trauma that is connected with any of them. This is because of the
way the subconscious mind (1) (2)
(3) (4) works. It can perpetuate, amplify, and recycle trauma
indefinitely.
There are several reasons for this.
The mind is apt to mistake two things that resemble each other in some way for the
exact same thing, and it may be unable to distinguish between the past and the present.
The mind often confuses a memory of something with the original physical event that
caused the memory. Confusion on the part of the subconscious mind between a memory
and a thing or event is what makes people feel as if they are "reliving" traumatic
events and circumstances, even though it is impossible to experience the exact same
physical event twice.
The subconscious mind develops habitual feelings and behaviors as a consequence
of the original trauma, and it continues to associate the memory of the traumatic
experience with subsequent life experiences that resemble the original traumatizing
event. This reinforces and builds on the negative habit process. The habits then
become self-reinforcing because they exist in a closed loop that can make it feel
as if the trauma is constantly being re-experienced and re-created. The information
loop is a closed one because no new information can be introduced to correct the
mind's now distorted impressions about what is or isn't really happening to you
in the present. The result can be a chronic condition of feeling defensive, threatened, over-stressed,
and afraid.
To summarize, the subconscious mind creates habits around trauma by "indexing" the
trauma experience in its memory and by collecting similar experiences around the
memory as evidence of the continuing existence of the original event; the resulting
chronic state of fear and anxiety is intended as protection against a recurrence
of the same traumatic event. The subconscious mind is always working to ensure our
survival.
Suggestion, Beliefs and Expectations
Affect the Trauma
Experience
People who have been traumatized look to the experts and to their fellow sufferers
for help in understanding what to expect from the experience of having been traumatized.
When the media, the experts and the traumatized all agree about how psychological
and emotional trauma affects us-including how long the effects will last-people
develop expectations and beliefs about what the effects are going to be. Regardless
of how inaccurate, unhelpful and even unhealthy they may be, our beliefs and expectations
about trauma can have a profound impact on our actual experience of trauma.
Among the beliefs that many mental health professionals and lay people seem to have
about trauma are: trauma causes emotional "scars" which take a long time-if ever-to
heal; trauma sufferers require years of therapy; they need to meet in groups of
fellow sufferers; and they need to tell their story over and over so that they can
re-experience the pain of their trauma in a "safe environment." Gradually things
may get better. Or they may not. Many people believe and expect that the effects
of trauma can never be completely eradicated.
Trauma, Habits and Tranceformation
In Tranceformation processes, what many people think of as the "emotional scars"
of trauma turn out to be habits on the part of the subconscious mind that can be
completely cleared. The negative habits were not in the mind before the traumatic
experience and they are no longer in the mind following Tranceformation.
Once a habit is cleared from the mind it cannot return. This is because the events
that caused the habit can never occur again, nor can the life context of the event
ever be recreated. We are always in the present; we can never be in the past. The
habit is simply gone, just as if it never was there. People find this an odd and
unexpected thing to get used to; usually they were never told to expect that it
was possible.
Traumatic and traumatizing effects are triggered by the memories of traumatic events
because of the characteristics of the subconscious mind and because of the way that
the subconscious mind works. Tranceformation takes advantage of how the mind naturally
works to get your mind to release the negative effects of traumatic memories and
be done with them forever.
When the mind releases the emotions and other associations that have been attached
to traumatic memories, all the trapped energy is freed. The effect is transformative.
Your energies become available for creative, rewarding and
healthy living. Balance
is achieved. The negative effects have been removed from the memories-comfortably,
gently, without pain. There is no "reliving" them. They can never be triggered again.
The nightmare is over. The trauma is over. There is healing and peace. You have
your life back.
 | THINK RESPONSIBLY! |
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