Dealing with Traumatic Memories

 I am continuing to suspend in-person hypnotherapy sessions with me in my office. However, phone, and Zoom consultations ARE and WILL REMAIN AVAILABLE! 

 

(This blog was originally posted on April 20, 2016)

 

Photo by Rick Hustead

 

 

“Negative moments get remembered. Traumatic ones get forgotten.”

– Leaving Time, Jodi Picoult

 

 

One of the great things about the mind is its capacity to help us deal with a painful or even traumatic event in our lives. On the one hand, the plasticity of the brain enables us to adapt to an uncomfortable environment and learn lessons from that experience to avoid getting into a similar situation in the future. On the other hand, the mind also naturally knows how to block out and even forget the memory of that event so we can continue to function and fulfill daily activities to facilitate our basic survival. In other words, this kind of case-specific amnesia functions like a life-saving balm.

For example: someone contacts me for hypnotherapy to overcome an intense fear of driving and being in a vehicle following a serious car crash. This person knows the facts about what happened but does not remember anything about the collision or the moments immediately afterward when firefighters had to cut him out of the vehicle with Jaws-of-Life equipment. That is okay. I do not need to know these details to create an effective hypnotic script that will help to increase the client’s comfort and self-confidence while driving or being in a car. In fact, this gap in the client’s conscious awareness of the crash facilitates the physiological and psychological healing process as he works toward achieving the avocational self-improvement goal of being comfortable behind the wheel.

Consequently, I do not use age-regression hypnosis to help a client access a repressed memory following a traumatic event. Doing so would be similar to ripping a scab off of a deep abrasion before the original wound has had a chance to heal. If and when the person is emotionally, physically and even spiritually ready to address what happened, these memories are likely to return organically in spontaneous flashes of recollection or through dreams. If and when that happens, I can use various hypnosis, therapeutic guided imagery and neuro-linguistic programming techniques to help the individual become desensitized to and deal with how these memories and consequences of this event. It may also be necessary to refer the client to a licensed mental-health provider and/or a physician for additional assessment and care if this issue falls outside of the scope of my expertise as a certified hypnotherapist.

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. Sara has been voted the Best Hypnotherapist in Santa Clarita, California, four years in a row (2019-2022). For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/

© 2022

 

 

Age-Regression on The Blacklist

 

(Spoiler Alert: This blog contains details about the story arc of a recent

episode of The Blacklist. Do not continue reading this article if you have

not yet seen but plan to watch Luther Braxton: Conclusion)

 

 

Ah, the practice of age-regression has reared its controversial head once again.

When she was a little girl, FBI Agent Elizabeth Keen’s parents supposedly died in a tragic house-fire. Fast-forward twenty-five years or so where a scene in NBC’s hit television series The Blacklist, titled Luther Braxton: Conclusion, has Keen being held hostage while a physician conducts an age-regression to reveal the location of a mysterious object. Her kidnapper, Braxton, and even protagonist Raymond “Red” Reddington believes that the woman knows what happened the night Keen’s home burned down and where the object is located. However, neither the hypnosis nor the drug cocktail of muscle-relaxants and truth serums seem to have any effect on her even when she insists that she also wants to know the truth about what happened that night.

As I explained in a previous blog titled Age Regression…And Why I Don’t Use This Technique to Uncover Traumatic Memories, age regression is a very dangerous procedure in that it can cause unnecessary psychological trauma for the client. When the subconscious mind “buries” a memory or “forgets” what happened during a traumatic incident, this is the SCM’s way of protecting the individual from further distress from thinking about or even reliving what happened. Repressed memories are common among people who have experienced psychological/physical/sexual abuse or other significant traumas such as the one that Agent Keen has experienced.

During the 1970s and 1980s, age-regression hypnosis was used as a crime-solving technique, especially to reveal previous sexual abuse which experts at that time believed was the cause of all psychological problems. Some people theorized that hypnosis would be a useful technique to rewind a person’s memory of a traumatic incident to discover what had happened. They held that once such information was revealed, hypnosis could help the victim to vent out repressed memories to resolve any feelings about and reactions to the trauma. Eventually, however, experts realized that this technique did not help either the client (alleged abuse victim) or lawyers to prosecute their cases because memories are filled with distortion and amnesia. In addition, when a person is under hypnosis he or she becomes highly suggestible and very eager to please the hypnotist. A highly emotional-suggestible client will infer that the hypnotist wants to hear certain information, and will duly provide those details.

However, I do not use age regression to discover (or help my client discover) information or memories that the person is not ready to address. When a terrible trauma has occurred, a person knows how to breathe, sleep, eat and eliminate. If a memory is too traumatic, the mind creates a “scab” over that memory to protect the individual from further trauma or stress. Just like you wouldn’t pull a scab off of an abrasion, I do not use hypnosis to rip a similar scab off your mind. Again, since there is no way to prove the veracity of any memories that a person regains while under hypnosis, this information would not be allowed in a court of law.

By the way, Agent Keen was unable to recover most of her lost memories in last week’s episode of The Blacklist. This outcome did not surprise me, however, since a person will not and cannot be made to say or do anything in hypnosis that he or she would not say or do while in an alert and aware state. Her subconscious mind kept fighting to protect her from painful memories of a past trauma despite every attempt—including Keen’s stated intent to remember—to bring them up. (There was a brief allusion to the possibility that she had previously been hypnotized to forget those painful memories in the first place, but that’s a topic for a different day.)

In conclusion, I would like to remind you that my first responsibility to my clients is to do no harm. As a certified hypnotherapist, my role is to help you achieve your vocational or avocational self-improvement goal. If you should spontaneously remember a traumatic incident, I will use hypnosis to help your present reality be more powerful than the past, and refer you to a licensed psychologist or other medical professional for additional professional support in areas that are outside my scope of expertise in hypnotherapy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015