NAH counseling: how hypnosis can help guide NAH patients

Brain injury is something that some people do not suffer from until later in life, such as being injured in the head or having had a stroke, meningitis, oxygen deprivation, poisoning, MS or brain tumor. This accident may then have caused trauma to the brain that affects their daily lives. Non-congenital brain injury is then the term used.

People with NAH

People with NAH do not respond well to rehabilitation after an accident, for example, so they continue to suffer from the brain injury for a long time. This can mean, for example, that your working memory no longer functions properly. You then find it difficult to keep information in your mind for short periods of time and to be able to change it[1].

This is already apparent when you have a conversation with someone. You can then quickly lose the thread of the story, such as the context in which something is taking place. If you want to answer, you can quickly forget what you actually wanted to answer[2].

So damaged working memory can have an awful lot of impact on your life, for example, you may find it difficult to make plans or to imagine something that is not in your mind at the time. You also become much more impulsive, because you can no longer quite imagine why you should not give in to a particular impulse.

With mild brain trauma, however, you may no longer be able to properly practice your profession. For example, many people with NAH start working part time or have to change jobs altogether. For example, some people may still suffer in their daily lives a year after a severe concussion because their brains no longer function as they did before[3].

Sometimes due to trauma, people can suffer from lasting effects such as thus not being able to think properly anymore, a change in personality and suffer more from mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety[4]. This is incredibly tiring and good sleep is therefore important. This can sometimes become more difficult precisely because of NAH.

About 650,000 (!) people in the Netherlands suffer from NAH.

Dutch research suggests that the effect can be that birthdays and parties have become too exhausting. In addition, people may find it difficult to understand that someone has a problem because it cannot be seen on the outside. People may then say things like "you are adjusting" or something similar[5].

In some people, the effect does show up clearly, for example by causing partial paralysis or suffering from epilepsy. It is especially those with invisible injuries in whom those around them often have difficulty understanding that the situation is now different from before.

NAH Care

Care for people with non-disabling brain injuries is often long-term in nature. There are specific departments in the mental health system that focus on people with this problem. It is not that people often need care, but the care they receive is mainly focused on how people with NAH spend their day[6]. Think about how they are doing with work, hobbies and social relationships.

In the Netherlands, most people with this problem do not enter the mental health system until months (usually six months) after the brain injury has occurred, often from a stroke (source 6).

NAH and hypnosis

Because hypnosis greatly affects the brain and the way you process information, they are also investigating whether hypnosis can affect recovery in people with NAH.

For example, research has been done to determine whether certain hypnotic suggestions can still improve working memory. This showed that it certainly can, and that people can even have better working memory afterward than people who have never suffered brain trauma. Even six weeks after the one-hour hypnotherapy session, people still had an improvement in working memory functioning. So researchers think that there is still some kind of residual capacity in the brain to process information in a normal way and this can be activated by hypnosis[7].

The study used age regression to reimagine how the brain functioned before the brain trauma (after all, there is nothing wrong with long-term memory) and visualized how brain plasticity can cause working memory to recover (source 6). In addition, a master hypnotherapist who had more than a year of experience working with clients was used.

For people who can still work, but no longer optimally, hypnotherapy can also be helpful to regain more optimal functioning. In a study of the effect of hypnosis for these people, suggestions were used to improve concentration, reduce fatigue and improve their working memory.

Also in this study, regression was important to retrieve the state of functioning before the brain trauma (source 3). In addition, posthypnotic suggestions worked to encourage regaining the pre-trauma state. These people received a total of eight hypnosis sessions. This helped reduce fatigue and reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms.

People were also able to attend longer meetings after this and needed less rest (allowing them to work a little more again if they wanted to).

Improving sleep is also something that is widely done with hypnosis, regardless of whether you suffer from a brain injury or not. It has been studied specifically for people with a brain injury, though, and this found that group hypnosis was already helping to improve sleep for people with brain injury and reduce fatigue (source 4). The study compared mindfulness meditation with hypnotic suggestions for improving sleep and only the hypnosis group could report improved sleep. Also, long-term improvements were better in the hypnosis group than in the mindfulness group.

Also in this study, participants in the hypnosis group were suggested that their brain plasticity would cause the brain to recover, reorganize, so that it could function as it did before the brain injury. In addition, participants were suggested that their skills and experiences would also return to being as they were before the brain injury. In addition, they were given suggestions about how easy thinking and automating thoughts would become again.

How hypnosis can help even more

In addition to helping to improve brain function, hypnosis can also help you better cope with the changes brought on by non-disabling brain injury, such as not being able to work well anymore, deteriorating relationships and your world getting smaller.

These are quite a few things that you suddenly have to let go of, which can put you in a slump. Hypnosis can reframe your situation, allowing you to still move forward in your life with more joy.

Chances are you are now focusing on what all is not working out and that is very painful. With hypnosis, instead, you can focus on what does work and the friends that do keep coming. After all, those are your real friends and the others were apparently just "fair weather" friends.

In addition, you can now suffer from beliefs about how life is supposed to be and how you are supposed to function. Many people have to reprioritize life after a brain injury anyway. What is really important right now? Hypnosis can help you with this by removing limiting beliefs that make you unhappy now and installing helpful beliefs in their place.

This can be done with post-hypnotic suggestions and it can be done by repeating certain suggestions such as:

"I can enjoy life."

"I am good enough the way I am."

"It's good to ask for help," says Mr. K.

"I get to catch my peace."

"I have friends who stay and I can make new friends."

These are just examples. Depending on the problems a person has with NAH, a hypnotherapist may come up with other suggestions.

Hypnosis can therefore help people suffering from NAH to restore brain function (depending on severity) by using regression and post-hypnotic suggestions. In addition, hypnosis can help you cope better with the new situation of your life so that it makes you less depressed.

Want to learn more about how hypnosis works and how you can use it to help people? Then come to the free online master class.

Want to learn the techniques such as age regression and post-hypnotic suggestions that can help people regain better brain function? Then sign up for Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' seminars or trainings. The trainings are conducted online and in classrooms. You can choose the class format that suits you.

Do you suffer from non-congenital brain injury and need help from a hypnotherapist? Then visit bestetherapeut.co.uk to find a therapist near you.

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