Becoming a Veteran of the Armed Forces can be a difficult enough challenge, but when doing so while suffering from the complex effects of PSTD can at times seem impossible. The road to recovery often requiring weeks if not years of therapy, can be very distressing when re-living the past in painful group sessions. The process can be extremely stressful leading to severely increased anxiety to unmanageable levels where we start to develop physiological symptoms in the body leading to either physical and/or mental illness, self-harm and thoughts of suicide.  The minds natural defence system, when faced with events that are so painful to process, is to bypass the conscious mind storing them instead deep in the subconscious kept well out of harms way.  This can be the case with PTSD but often such events are played back as flashbacks or night terrors and when triggered they can often be seriously debilitating, affecting us in everything we do and think.  Such complex thought processes may seem impossible to ever move beyond, but with competent therapy and a full understanding of the issues faced by PTSD unique to combat and Forces' service, it can be so. The key is to find a therapist who does understand. Simply put - I do!

 

Both serving or retired police officers and firemen and women, are also highly susceptible to PTSD, stress and anxiety.  In the recognition of the services you provide for your communities we would like to offer our help to protect you and your families.

 

There are a number of integrated complimentary therapies that can alleviate stress and anxiety offered by services charities such as Combat Stress, with techniques such as CBT or NLP recommended, however only Hypnotherapy and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprogramming) have the ability to deal with the subconscious deep rooted often very painfull memories that we try to surpress just to function normally - on the outside! Whilst other therapies can be succesful in tackling trauma they rely solely on the conscious mind recognising and then taking action through learnt behaviours and training to interupt and stop our patterns. Hypnotherapy and EMDR (which is recognised by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence as an approved intervention and therapy) however, requires of you nothing but the wilingness to change, as it is the positive suggestions and analysis we carry out working together that is enacted upon by your subconscious, which can bring about instant and lasting behavioural change, without the need to undergo extensive training and therapy sessions. In a clinical setting we safely bring these surpressed memories into the awareness of the conscious mind so they may be processed without re-living them. Through advanced techniques such as EMDR negative thought patterns can then be reprocessed and blocks put in place to prevent regressions through amnesia of the traumatic events. Such therapy can allow a positive and swift move through the reaction or abreaction as it is known, rather like an artillery round - it will go off with a loud bang but will only last for a few seconds, and once spent the round remains of no use. It is therefore effectively disposed of as a memory of the trauma, allowing for post traumatic 'growth' not 'stress' to take over, which gets you back out there and back on form fast.

 

This is how EMDR therapy can have dramatic, immediate life changing effects instead of undergoing years of psychotherapy. We are able to provide therapy for FREE to Armed Forces Veterans in Hertfordshire when accessed through the British Legion quoting '1 MIND HYPNOTHERAPY'.  If you or your partner could benefit from our help - please get in touch directly with us and we will liaise with the relevant bodies. Our primary aim is to help you and your family back to wellness as quickly as possible.