NAH counseling: how hypnosis can help guide NAH patients

Brain injury is something that affects some people later in life, for example, due to a head injury or because they have suffered a stroke, meningitis, oxygen deprivation, poisoning, MS, or a brain tumor. Such an incident may have caused brain trauma that affects their daily lives. “Acquired brain injury” is the term used in such cases.

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 the trauma, people may suffer from lasting consequences, such as difficulty thinking clearly, a change in personality, and an increased risk of mental health conditions like depression or anxiety[4]. This is incredibly exhausting, which is why getting a good night’s sleep is so important. However, this can sometimes be made more difficult by the acquired brain injury (ABI).

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're acting up" or something similar[5].

For some people, the effects are clearly visible—for example, because they have developed partial paralysis or suffer from epilepsy. It is especially the case for people with invisible injuries that those around them often struggle to understand that their situation is now different from what it used to be.

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 conducted to determine whether certain hypnotic suggestions can indeed improve working memory. The findings showed that this is certainly possible and that, afterward, people may even have better working memory than those who have never suffered from a brain injury. Even six weeks after a one-hour hypnotherapy session, people still showed an improvement in their working memory function. Researchers therefore believe that there is still a kind of residual capacity in the brain to process information normally, and that this can be activated through hypnosis[7].

The study utilized age regression, allowing the brain to reimagine how it functioned before the brain injury occurred (after all, there is nothing wrong with long-term memory) and visualized how neuroplasticity can help working memory recover (source 6). In addition, a master hypnotherapist with over a year of experience working with clients was consulted.

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 a common application of hypnosis, regardless of whether you have a brain injury or not. It has been specifically studied in people with brain injuries, and the results showed that group hypnosis helped improve sleep and reduce fatigue in this population (source 4). In the study, mindfulness meditation was compared to hypnotic suggestions for improving sleep, and only the hypnosis group reported that their sleep had improved. The long-term improvements were also greater 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 improve brain function, hypnosis can also help you better cope with the changes that acquired brain injury brings, such as difficulty functioning at work, deteriorating relationships, and a narrowing of your world.

These are quite a few things you suddenly have to let go of, which can cause you to feel down. Hypnosis can help you reframe your situation, allowing you to continue living your life with more joy.

Chances are you ’re currently focusing on all the things you can’t do anymore, and that’s very painful. With hypnosis, you can instead focus on what you can do and the friends who still stick by you. After all, those are your true friends, and the others were apparently just “fair-weather” friends.

In addition, you may now be struggling with beliefs about how life is supposed to be and how you’re supposed to function. Many people have to reevaluate their priorities in life after a brain injury. What really matters? Hypnosis can help you with this by removing limiting beliefs that are currently making you unhappy and replacing them with helpful ones.

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.

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works and how you can use it to help people? Then join us for the free online masterclass.

Would you like to learn techniques such as age regression and posthypnotic suggestions that can help people restore their brain’s optimal functioning? Then sign up for the seminars or training courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands. The courses are offered both online and in person. You can choose the format that works best for you.

Do you suffer from acquired brain injury and need help from a hypnotherapist? Then visit bestetherapeut.nl to find a therapist near you.

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