Healing Trauma with Integrative Hypnotherapy, NLP, and Neuroscience

There are powerful therapeutic approaches that can help rewire the brain, heal from trauma, and create new neural pathways.

Integrative hypnotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and practical neuroscience tools such as bilateral stimulation and therapeutic memory reconsolidation offer promising paths for healing.

Understanding Trauma and the Brain
When we experience trauma, our brains can become wired to react to similar situations as if the threat is still present.
This is due to the brain's natural survival mechanism, which seeks to protect us by keeping us alert to potential dangers.

Unfortunately, this protective mechanism can also keep us stuck in a loop of reactivity, making it difficult to move forward and live fully.

Traumatic memories are often stored in the brain's amygdala, which is involved in processing emotions and fear responses. These memories can be easily triggered by sensory cues (like smells or sounds) or by specific situations that resemble the original trauma. When this happens, the brain responds with the same level of intensity as it did during the original event, causing distress and making it pretty hard to think clearly or rationally.

How Integrative Hypnotherapy Helps
Integrative hypnotherapy is a powerful therapeutic tool that helps us access our subconscious minds, where many of these traumatic memories and reactions are stored.

When we are guided into a relaxed, focused state with hypnotherapy, we are allowing ourselves to explore and reframe these memories in a safe, attuned and contained environment.
In a BodyMind hypnotherapy session, we work to identify specific memories or patterns that are causing distress. Through guided processes, (timeline work, clearing, reimprinting etc) you can begin to rewire neural pathways, replacing old, harmful responses with new, healthier ones.

These processes help reduce the emotional charge associated with traumatic
memories, making these memories less likely to be problematic in everyday life.
These methods are particularly effective for those of us who may have difficulty accessing or articulating trauma in a more traditional talk therapy setting, or for those who have discovered that telling the same story, with the same old emotion just keeps them in the same unwanted state.

The Role of NLP in Healing
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is another powerful tool that can help us heal from trauma.
NLP focuses on understanding and changing the patterns of thought and behavior that have been ingrained in the brain.
Through a variety of techniques, NLP can help us to break free from negative thought patterns and replace them with more positive and empowering ones.

One of the core principles of NLP is that the way we perceive the world is directly related to the language and images we use in our minds.

We all have a brain, and we are ALL talking to ourselves and showing ourselves images and mind movies, all the freaking time. It's ALL in our heads.
Try thinking a thought that's NOT an image, a mind movie, an inner dialogue, a recalled kinesthetic, taste or smell?

NLP lets us re-code our inner map, re-coloring and placing old distressing thoughts in new places - creating new neural wiring and responses.
By changing our internal representations, we can change our experience of the world.

NLP techniques, such as anchoring, reframing, and pattern interruption, are specifically designed to help us to break free from automatic, trauma-based responses and create new, more adaptive neural pathways.

One great quick pattern interrupt I use often is asking myself:
"What's everything, I'm not noticing.. That's NOT that?"
"THAT" being whatever sensation, emotion or thought that was distressing.
The effect is an instant expansion of awareness, and the problem always seems smaller.

Practical Neuroscience, Bilateral Stimulation and Memory Reconsolidation
The neuroscience of trauma is a very interesting area of study! This practical neuroscience field provides a scientific basis for understanding how trauma impacts the brain and how we can effectively heal from it.
One technique that has gained attention in recent years is bilateral stimulation, which involves stimulating both sides of the brain in a rhythmic pattern. This technique is often used in therapies such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and is thought to help the brain process and integrate traumatic memories more effectively. It can copy and paste a 'recourse' (the sense of calm found from the bilateral eye movement) onto the neural pathway of an old trigger - and rebalance the left and right hemispheres of the brain... Which is important when you realize that states like anxiety reside predominantly in one hemisphere.

In moments of being triggered, we can learn to put a roadblock up for ourselves.
We can activate the parasympathetic nervous system - using simple exercises like EFT, self-directed bilateral stimulation, or shifting into peripheral vision.

Rather than going down the same old reactive road, we can have a pause.

An easy way to re-balance your own hemispheres in a moment of craving, reaction or intense emotion is to take anything you have nearby (car keys, ear bud case, empty cup)... whatever.

• Hold the object up in front of you - at the midline of your body.
• Take a moment to focus your eyes upon it.
• Move the object all the way to the left, without moving your head, follow with your eyes. Move it back across the midline of your body, all the way to your right. Following with your eyes.
• Move that object back and forth, left and right - just following with your eyes.
• Breathe in and breath out, twice as long.

Most people notice, the thoughts quiet down.

When we can access a moment of inner quiet, and then ask ourselves.. "How do I WANT to feel instead" and then "try on" that new feeling - we are starting to prep the new neural pathway towards the resource that we want to become automatic.

When we sense a trigger and immediately activate both hemispheres of the brain (like in the little exercise above) or when we shift into peripheral vision - it's like we press a pause button that then allows us to access 'choice' and recourses, rather than react.

Another key concept in trauma healing is therapeutic memory reconsolidation.
This is a process through which traumatic memories are "unlocked" and "re-stored" in the brain in a less distressing form.
Every time we think of something in the past, we pull that file out of storage and then reconsolidate it.

When looking at the brain hooked up to an FMRI machine, the same areas light up when a person thinks of a 'real' or 'imagined' memory.
During memory reconsolidation processes, the brain is given the opportunity to update a traumatic memory with new information, essentially rewriting the old memory and reducing its emotional impact. We can't change what happened, but we can change the nervous system response by imagining a better feeling story- leading to less "in the moment" reactivity.

This process helps us become less triggered and reactive, allowing us to move forward in life with greater ease and resilience.

Moving Forward with Greater Ease

By integrating hypnotherapy, NLP, and practical neuroscience techniques, we can begin to heal from trauma and create new neural networks in the brain.

Bodymind approaches help to rewire the brain, making traumatic memories less distressing and reducing automatic, reactive responses.

As a result, we are better able to navigate our lives in ways that are aligned with our goals and desires, rather than being held back by their past experiences.

Healing from trauma is a journey, but with the right tools and support, it is entirely possible to create lasting change.

If you or someone you know is struggling with the effects of trauma, consider exploring these therapeutic approaches with us to help facilitate healing and promote a more fulfilling life.