Trauma dissociation and hypnosis: What about it?

A trauma dissociation and hypnosis is a combination to nullify the dissociating effects of trauma. Sometimes a trauma can be so intense that you mentally distance yourself from it. After all, that's when you can pretend it didn't happen to you, but to someone else.

However, the traumatic event is over at some point. Life goes on, and it is easier and more enjoyable when you are well connected to yourself.

In this blog article, we take a closer look at trauma dissociation and hypnosis.

Trauma dissociation

Dissociation is a way to psychologically defend yourself from the ferocity and negative emotions that a traumatic event evokes. In fact, a traumatic event causes you to go through an unwanted transformation very quickly.

Consider the loss of your innocence when you first encounter violence, especially if it is intense violence.

Suddenly the world turns out to be different than you thought and dealing with this can be very difficult. This changes not only your perception of the outside world, but also of yourself.

Yourself in this new reality. Your whole idea of yourself and how you function and can function in your environment suddenly changes.

Because you see things in a new way, you also experience a change in wakefulness, awareness, control and ability to concentrate. Depersonalization is the main clinical feature of this resulting state, called dissociation[1].

So you don't feel like yourself anymore and this can feel like you are out of touch with yourself.

So trauma is about more than just the situation, it is also about your perception (view) of that situation.

If you cannot resolve a trauma directly it often happens unconsciously by thinking about the trauma repeatedly. This is the case, for example, when your brain suddenly confronts you with the memory of the incident. After each memory, you may have reassessed reality. You get new thoughts, but this is far from always going well.

Many people who cannot resolve trauma directly get self-destructive thoughts. They get tangled up, so to speak(source 1).

Your schedule in disarray

In fact, everyone has some kind of schema, or cognitive map, of themselves and the environment and how everything works.

Trauma is an event that doesn't really fit on the map at all. Reality has suddenly gone off-road for you. The roller coaster of life, which has ups and downs anyway, suddenly, during a traumatic event, doesn't even appear to have any rails to which it is attached.

This schedule is very comprehensive and deals with all kinds of things, such as your self-image, your relationships, your locations, how you treat everyone and how people treat you. Your past and expectations for the future. It's pretty all encompassing which is in such a schedule.

Actually, we are constantly adjusting this schedule. Just like a TomTom that gives you an update, but if suddenly a whole road is missing or a mountain appears (figuratively speaking, hehe), it is difficult to implement such an update.

So then you get a SYSTEM ERROR.

You're stuck and suffering the negative effects of trauma because you can't fit that event into your schedule.

To get trauma to fit into your schedule, you have to think back to it often. It may seem that you are obsessed with the trauma.

Often you may also feel that the trauma is not yet "over" and that you need to do some action to bring closure. Such as that you still need to say something to someone who did something to you. Otherwise, the situation is not "over."

If it is difficult to name the trauma, it makes it difficult to stay in touch with yourself and reduces your feelings of control.

When you feel helpless because you can't control or get away from a situation, it is also traumatic. This can make you incredibly angry, but unfortunately that anger can also lead to suicide.(Call 113 if you find yourself with these kinds of feelings).

Incomplete trauma often also makes you feel less connected to those around you.

The combination of the feeling of loss of control, anger (which can manifest itself in a lot of behavior, or just being very withdrawn) and the loss of the sense of contact creates the dissociation.

Time and trauma

On top of that, your perception of time can change due to trauma. For example, something that is very traumatic is when you are diagnosed with cancer.

An acquaintance of mine got this at a young age. In the summer she was told she had it, and in the winter she suddenly "woke up" again. The entire fall had passed her by during the period of treatment because she was in the trauma of the disease. She didn't actually get past the point of the bad news conversation, and it wasn't until she recovered at home, and the whole process was completed, that time started running normally again.

The perception of time no longer made sense.

In the process, not being able to immediately resolve the trauma can lead to creating a new personality. Something more common in people with dissociation due to trauma.

It's like bringing a different part of yourself more to the forefront now, than what you normally show to those around you.

For example, your normal way of adjusting socially no longer works well, and the alter ego helps you navigate through a situation anyway.

You also often see that you divide your life into 2 parts. Your life before the trauma and life after the trauma. If you just had a traumatic childhood, and then went through more traumatic things afterwards, it is often still the first trauma that has had the most impact.

In order to protect yourself, you can disconnect from yourself precisely so again. It is as if you put your true self deep inside yourself so that the rest of yourself can protect you. (Get it?)

This alone weakens the connection of your internal world to the external world.

Hypnosis to resolve dissociation and trauma

As you can see, thought patterns and even parts of your personality play an important role in the development of dissociation after trauma. Fortunately, these are parts that a hypnotherapist can help you untangle everything and get new thoughts about it.

This will stop obstructive repetitive thoughts about the trauma preventing you from moving forward, but will allow you to give the event a place in the "story" of your life.

You can name it as plot twist, for example.

Hypnosis combined with psychotherapy (cognitive behavioral therapy) is precisely something that can help people who have suffered from dissociation due to child abuse or child maltreatment[2].

What's interesting is that people who suffer from dissociation are often good at hypnotizing as well. Researchers believe this is because hypnosis and dissociation use similar brain processes. Thereby, hypnosis is also widely used to reduce dissociation symptoms according to these researchers[3].

How hypnosis is used against dissociation

As mentioned, there are several things going on that cause dissociation. Important components of treatment therefore include:

Improving people's mental schema so they can give trauma a place in the bigger picture of their lives.

So when you look at the new personality, trauma can cause another part of yourself to become more prominent. For example, the part that stands up for itself very well, because not standing up for yourself caused the trauma.

However, your more vulnerable part may suffer from this again.

By allowing the parts of your personality to better connect with each other, the hypnotherapist can ensure that you become beautifully whole again. So that even your vulnerable part can enjoy life again.

This is an advanced technique taught at Hypnosis Institute Netherlands in the third part of the training.

Regression is a technique that is also important for processing trauma. Especially if you have suffered from childhood trauma or have had repeated traumatizing experiences.

In fact, a regression allows you to change the emotion at the moment. Whereby the memory of the moment no longer causes a total stress reaction and also allows you to talk about the incident better in everyday conversations (should it ever come up).

In doing so, you can combine the regression technique with other techniques, such as the fast phobia technique for trauma closure. Or such as talking to your inner child (the vulnerable part of your personality) so that it feels comfortable in your body again.

By working through the trauma in addition to paying specific attention to your true self and how it has been hidden away by the dissociation, a hypnotherapist helps people reduce the dissociation.

Learn Hypnosis

Want to learn more about hypnosis and how you can help yourself and especially others with knowledge of hypnosis and hypnotherapy?

Come to a free master class for an introduction.

Or register directly for one of our events or trainings.

Click here for our calendar.

Click here for our training courses.

Already have questions about the training and whether it's right for you? Click here to schedule a consultation about the training.

Sources: