I feel rather disappointed that many of our heroes are retuning from tours of duty suffering from PTSD and are being offered limited help by ‘the system’ if any at all. Why is it that ‘the system’ seems unable to help with PTSD effectively?
One of the symptoms of PTSD is the continuous flashbacks that occur – totally unexpectantly. Why is this? I believe the answer can be found in the Reconsolidation Theory published by Joseph LeDoux, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists.
His work into how memories are stored and recalled shows that short term memories are kept in the hippocampus and, when transferred to the neo-cortex, these memories are no longer in couscous awareness but are stored in our filing cabinet of memories. And, memories are fixed in this storage area by the production of a protein which ‘sets’ the memory.
If traumatic memories are continually ‘flashing’ back into conscious awareness then it seems to me that somehow, the laying down of the memory into the neo-cortex was not totally successful.
As a Cognitive Hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner, I have been trained in many techniques some of which are aimed specifically at PTSD. Emotional Freedom Technique has been used and refined for many years and has a proven success record when working with Vietnam Veterans. Eye Movement Integration is one of our most potent weapons in this area which can remove the emotional effects of a trauma in an amazingly short space of time.
If you are one of our armed forces or are an ex-serviceman, then I am willing to see if I can help you for free. I choose to help our servicemen because I can. I believe they deserve our unconditional support regardless of the conflict itself or its justification.