My experiences this week have expanded my awareness of the subconscious and how repression of chronic stress/traumas can profoundly affect our psychological development and condition.
These recent clinical experiences support this week's podcast with Dr. Annie Alexander on healing trauma using hypnosis. I hope you'll find our conversation insightful and helpful.
Read on for more of my reflections.
Have a wonderful week!
The Invisible Self: Repressed Traumas' Power Over Our Psyches
How chronic hidden stressors shape our evolving identity
During my first clinical rotation in medical school, I worked with several patients diagnosed with "Multiple Personality Disorder," now called "Dissociative Identity Disorder." The common thread that ran through their lives was prolonged, severe, childhood trauma and their repeated attempts to cope through repression and dissociation.
These repressed experiences and their states of being became disconnected from conscious awareness and retrieval. Unfortunately, this life-saving coping strategy cannot make these experiences disappear entirely. Instead, like the hidden part of an iceberg, what is beneath the surface is just as real as what is above.
When something unlocks the closet of repressed memories along with their associated states of being—it can be a person, an experience, or an environmental trigger—unresolved traumas emerge, replaying the same horror movie frozen in their hidden cryotube of time.
Then, for the patient, it is as if the world shifts to a different place and time. Their biology, mindset, and perceptions become heavily influenced by those repressed experiences and can appear as psychosis, mania, panic attacks, or depression. After all, these labels are just a group of symptoms and have many different potential underlying causes.
This week, I worked intensely with a patient whose repressed traumas were associated with (and perhaps formed) his bipolar-like cycles. I believe that healing his repressed, chronic, childhood traumas will help him to achieve his goal of healing from his atypical "bipolar II disorder."
Yes, his symptoms include insomnia, anxiety, increased mental activity, and irritability. But these symptoms arose when his current social circumstances unlocked/triggered memories spanning decades of repressed suffering as a child. He dissociated these painful memories because he was too young to cope with them.
Response to stressors/traumas lands us along a continuum of possible disruptions and dysfunctions depending on when, how long, how frequently, and how severely they occurred.
For example, I currently work with someone who experienced severe, prolonged insomnia due to one episode of LSD use many years ago. For many years, he has taken five different medications to help him sleep. My energy testing indicates that he can safely lower at least a little of his medications. But the moment I do so, his fear of insomnia causes his insomnia to return.
This is how a single traumatic experience and a person's response to an event can alter their ability to withdraw from medication. And this is why successful withdrawal from psychiatric medications requires a holistic approach that heals both underlying biological and psychological causes.
However, with both functional and energy medicine as tools for healing, I believe that even repressed traumas can be healed, resolved, and transformed. Like oysters, we have the creative ability to transform the sands of stress into pearls of power, given time and a little hard work.
Have a great week!
P.S. If you have any particular topics you want to hear about on my podcast, please feel free to email me and let me know.
The Holistic Psychiatrist Podcast (Ep. 16):
Fascinating Case Studies from
Dr. Annie Alexander’s Hypnotherapy Practice
Check out the teaser for the new episode out tomorrow!
In the second part of Dr. Alexander’s interview, we explore fascinating case studies from her hypnotherapy sessions. She also shares her experiences using evolutionary astrology and discusses the quantum and spiritual nature of this approach. In addition, she reveals the most surprising and rewarding experiences she had, as well as the most important lesson she learned, from her practice.
Dr. Alexander has over 30 years of clinical experience as a psychologist and over a decade integrating hypnosis and evolutionary astrology into her practice. She uses her skills to help people overcome traumas, addictions, and dissociation. Dr. Alexander shares her perspective on trauma and psychosomatic illness and what factors lead to more successful treatment outcomes.
Click here for the full episode available on Wednesday.
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