How can I Recover from PTSD, C-PTSD & Trauma?

Online across the U.K., Europe & USA

Jane Pendry

DSFH, HPD; Reg CNHC, AfSFH, MNCH, ABNLP, ABH, IARTT; CTAA, BA Hons (London), PGCE (Cantab). Three Best Rated Hypnotherapist, Oxford 2023, Prestige Best Hypnotherapist, Oxford & South East, 2023

Recover from medical traumas, sudden bereavement, travel accidents, life changing medical episodes, PTSD, CPTSD.

Rediscover your values, beliefs and true motivations after trauma, including toxic or complex relationship break-ups, gaslighting, bullying, redundancy or job loss.

The Sense-Ability Rewind & Recover from Trauma Pathway

Trauma is an adaptation to overwhelming life events. It is not a disorder.

Sense-Ability ‘do no harm’ somatic therapies work by calming the central nervous system and toning the vagus nerve to increase mental resilience and heal past traumas locked in the body and mind.

The Sense-Ability approach is ideal for clients who ‘are all talked out’ or who know and understand the why and how of their traumas and feel ready to resolve them.

What is Rewind Trauma Therapy?

Rewind Trauma Therapy is a gentle, effective and proven process for resolving traumas quickly, painlessly and without any need to discuss painful events.

The process shifts traumatic memories out of the fear-based primitive mind into the narrative memory. You can remember, if you need to, but the associated intense emotions have dissipated or been dissolved.

Jane at Sense-Ability helps clients gently resolve traumas, whether they are part of a more complex pattern of abuse or trauma, or as a result of a single dramatic event or a series of connected events.*

With RTT, traumas are painlessly processed - layer by layer. The mind is then open to learning more helpful, solution focused patterns of thinking, acting and reacting, leading to greater stability, and a healthier happier future.

Complex Enduring Trauma & Abandonment

Recovering from more complex childhood trauma, neglect and abandonment can be a longer journey. The Sense-Ability approach is a ‘do no harm’ complementary approach that can help people at any stage of the healing journey. It may not, however, be the whole answer for someone with enduring complex trauma. This gentle Solution Focused approach can lead to or from talking therapies. It may lead to it from psychodynamic therapy, Internal Family Systems, Jungian psychotherapy or more in depth somatic approaches.

There are many paths to healing and there’s no wrong way. I offer the support that helped me in particular. If clients become stuck or need further help beyond the scope of my training and experience, I can help to direct them to reputable sources so they can explore further options. Then a Solution Focused conversation helps clients determine their next steps forward.

I am always available for support alongside other therapies when that’s appropriate and helpful.

Please contact Jane to discuss whether the Sense-Ability approach might be helpful.

Case Studies

Hypnotherapy & Rewind for Trauma article: including Helen’s story - trauma post partum psychosis, and later bereavement and She’s story - recovering from childhood neglect and trauma.

Denise’s Story: Somatic Healing for Psychological Safety

Steve’s Story: Despair to Triumph.

Julie’s Story: misophonia and thalassophobia linked to childhood trauma.

Penelope’s* Story: Where ME meets Trauma.

Madeleine’s* Story: Overcoming Anxiety & Bad Habits (stabilising after trauma)

*Pseudonyms chosen by my clients

Sense-Ability Therapies for Trauma

Rewind Trauma Therapy or RTT

RTT is an effective, simple therapy to help clients painlessly resolve single event traumas, PTSD, and multiple event complex traumas, C-PTSD

RTT aims to shift trauma out of the fight, flight, freeze part of the brain to the parts that store narrative memories. RTT involves creating an imaginary film and then rewinding it at speed a number of times.

RTT is often called the ‘Closure without Disclosure’ method.

Developed by heart surgeon Dr David Muss more than 30 years ago, current clinical trials at Cardiff University have indicated that RTT is at least as effective as EMDR and quicker and less likely to retraumatise. We look forward to reading the detailed research outcomes in 2022.

Here Dr Muss Explains his Rewind Trauma Therapy process.

Solution Focused Brief Therapy, SFBT

People recovering from trauma often don’t want to discuss past painful memories.

Solution Focused Brief Therapy is a proven, highly effective healing approach developed through research. It’s a safe, gentle, effective therapy for trauma survivors.

SFBT focuses on Hope. Trauma clients explore existing skills and resources, and learn to imagine and create a safer and more stable future in steady, incremental steps.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy or SFH

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy calms the central nervous system, and helps clients make steady incremental improvements leading to lasting change. * SFH incorporates key elements of SFBT and Ericksonian suggestion-based hypnosis to create lasting change. Trauma clients gently create and embed new patterns of thinking, acting and reacting leading to increased stability and a more hopeful future.

The Sense-Ability Complementary approach

Sense-Ability therapies are tailored to the client’s needs, values, beliefs and desired outcomes.

Although EMDR, also a better known somatic healing practise, I chose to train in Rewind Trauma Therapy because it:

• is highly effective and practical

• is a relatively rapid therapy

• reduces the risk of re-traumatisation

• does not require clients to disclose or talk about traumas in detail

• is very cost effective

• it worked for me

• it was being trialled at Cardiff University

Letting go of traumas which have been part of someone’s life for a long time can be disconcerting.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy - which integrates best practices in Solution Focused Brief Therapy and suggestion-based hypnotherapy - supports clients as they adjust after each traumatic memory trigger is resolved.

Hypnotherapy scripts are adapted to be trauma-informed and to ensure clients feel safe.*

By calming the central nervous system and toning the vagus nerve, Solution Focused Hypnotherapy helps clients begin to rebuild their sense of self, resolve stuck emotions and create healthier, happier lives.

With Sense-Ability, clients retain personal agency - control over their choices and decisions - and the focus is on ensuring the client feels increasingly stable, safe and secure so we work at a pace that feels right for the client.

See Sense-Ability article Can I recover from trauma?

Sense-Ability FAQs details the difference between hypnosis, hypnotherapy, Solution Focused Brief Therapy and Rewind Trauma Therapy.

Understanding Trauma triggers

You may be surprised to learn, you don’t need to talk about a trauma to heal it.

At Sense-Ability Hypnotherapy & Coaching, we don’t focus on exploring how or why you carry trauma. The focus is on resolving it, not reliving it.

If you would like to understand what happens in the mind when a trauma is triggered this article from Trauma Research U.K. is very clear and easy to understand.

Sense-Ability & Somatic Healing

The Sense-Ability approach falls under somatic healing therapies which work with the body and mind.

No analysis.

No diagnosis.

No judgement.

Solution Focused approaches work well with trauma resolution. They give survivors personal agency and help them transform deeply embedded painful programmes and patterns of thinking, acting and reacting.

All talked out

Sense-Ability therapies are most effective when clients are ‘all talked out’. Generally my clients come to me because they have already understand why they are carrying trauma, and what caused their trauma. Most clients are also exhausted because they can’t stop talking about their traumas. The ‘past is always in the present’.

Astoundingly, and comfortingly, we don’t necessarily need to discuss the trauma in order to resolve it!

Ready to rebuild your future

When trauma clients connect with me they are looking to embrace change and rebuild their lives.

Progress can be rapid and transformational. With complex traumas, resolution is a more steady and incremental process. Layers of trauma are often peeled back and clients rebuild and destabilise between rewinds with Solution Focused Hypnotherapy.

Shedding a deeply held trauma often requires a mental adjustment - clients invariably experience relief. However, suppressed emotions, blocked by being in a constant state of fight or fright, can bubble up. People can experience anger, sorrow, and grief. It’s one reason that each Rewind involves at least two sessions, two weeks apart, so the client can adjust, assimilate the change and settle in to the new normal.

That’s why Progress is always at the client’s pace.

Rewind Trauma Therapy on Trial

Rewind Trauma Therapy (RTT) is fast becoming the therapy of choice for processing single event and even deeply held complex traumas.

RTT is a ‘do no harm’ therapy. Simple and practical. Cost effective. Rapid. No digging into past. No talking about the trauma.

Rewind Trauma Therapy on Trial!

RTT is not yet in the Goverment’s NICE Guidelines. Cardiff University is undertaking clinical trials and results are very positive. Dr Muss, heart surgeon and trauma specialist, developed and refined the process over 30 years.

Dr Muss has championed the clinical trials for Rewind Trauma, and claims over 80% of traumas are resolved through the process. That reflects my own experience.

This practical therapy is structured in such a way re-traumatisation or abreactions are unlikely. Results are rapid and lasting.

Resolving PTSD and CPTSD triggers

Rewind Trauma Therapy helps to resolve many different kinds of traumas.

Simple Traumas

Accidents, explosions, physical attacks. There is nothing simple about the impact but the original cause is a single identifiable event, or closely related events

Vicarious Trauma

A trauma caused by what was seen or witnessed. This is particularly common for people working in emergency services and the Police, social workers and medical teams.

Intergenerational Trauma

Racism, religious bigotry, and inherited trauma overlaps with complex traumas

Complex Traumas

Coronavirus linked trauma or traumas due to other protracted illnesses or being on life support.

Enduring adverse conditions can also lead to complex traumas, coercion, gaslighting and childhood abuse for example.

Little ‘t’ Traumas

Rewind Trauma Therapy, usually combined with Solution Focused Hypnotherapy, also helps resolve traumas related to:

• protracted grief

• separation

• divorce

• rejection

• moving house

• redundancies

• sensory overload

Often called ‘little t’ traumas, not because they are small traumas; but because they have arisen from ‘normal’ events. The traumatic impact can be profound. Often the little t trauma echoes earlier loss or trauma. In my experience these traumas can be complex and multi-layered or simply arose because the events became overwhelming.

Little ‘t’ traumas can also lead to phobias; a bad dental appointment, a dog bite or a bird trapped in the house.

NB: Complex traumas often require a more integrated approach. Please scroll down to the bottom of the page for an outline of Sense-Ability’s tailored support for complex trauma survivors.

Traditional talking therapies and trauma

For many years, severe anxiety-based conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD were considered only treatable through long, painful exposure therapy, if at all. However, for many people, talking therapy has had little impact on resolving embedded traumas. In fact, talking about traumas again and again has a harmful effect.*

What is Somatic healing?

Experts now agree that somatic healing methods for complex trauma are most effective. Somatic healing focuses on the connection between the body and mind, uses both psychotherapy and physical therapies for holistic healing. Rewind Trauma and Solution Focused Hypnotherapy fall under this umbrella term.

How does Rewind Trauma Therapy work?

The answer lies in neuroscience.

Trauma is created when our systems are overwhelmed.

Trauma overwhelms a person’s ability to cope when faced with a threat. Sometimes even facing a potential serious threat creates trauma. When we are overwhelmed, the fear or anxiety is stored in the fight, flight, fright part of the mind; the amygdala. The sufferer has not been able to process shocking events and continues to be ‘hijacked’ by the overwhelm and fear, sometimes for many years.

During a traumatic event

The amygdala, the fight, flight, fright part of the brain linked to our survival, is activated by an intense, emotional event from which we cannot escape. The hypothalamus pumps out stress hormones and inhibits the function of the hippocampus, where many of our behavioural patterns of behaviour and longer term memories are stored.

The traumatic event gets stuck

If the overwhelming experience is not processed in the moment, the event can get stuck in the short-term memory. The sufferer feels as if they are reliving the traumatic event in the present. The trauma manifests as flashbacks, nightmares, repetitive and distressing images, or physical sensations.

Single Event or Multiple Event Traumas

Whether the trauma is a single event (car accident, explosion, attack by a stranger) or a multiple event trauma (NHS staff working through coronavirus, childhood abuse, narcisstic abuse or boarding school syndrome) RTT can help. The techniques and process change slightly depends on the nature of the trauma.

How effective is Rewind Trauma Therapy?

Rewind Trauma Therapy is a relatively comfortable, simple and effective treatment that can greatly reduce, and even remove, traumatic or phobic symptoms quickly through relaxation and guided imagery.

Closure without Disclosure

RTT is often called the ‘closure without disclosure’ therapy as it isn’t necessary to talk about the details of the traumatic incident(s) in question. The Rewind technique originated from NLP and is also known as the visual/kinaesthetic dissociation technique. Dr Muss refined and tested the technique to make it safer and more effective.

Relaxation combined with visualisation

The client undertakes Rewind while in a state of relaxation, when the body is not in a state of high alert. The process enables the brain to process the memory of the trauma or traumas calmly while the memory is processed and stored as a narrative memory devoid of intense emotion. Research is indicating it works as well as EMDR but takes less time and is less likely to cause re-traumatisation, and does not need to be administered by a qualified psychologist.

It sounds to be good to be true however I have found the results repeated over and over again.

What does Rewind Trauma Therapy entail?

RTT does not involve talk therapy. Rewind is a practical process based on our understanding of neuroscience.

The RTT process

• The creation of an imaginary cinema that feels safe, private and where the screen and the seating are separated by some distance

• The creation of an imaginary film of the trauma, filmed at a distance and and viewed at a distance to minimise the risk of retraumatising

• ‘Leaping’ in to the ’film’, looking through their own eyes, and rewinding the film at speed

• Repeating the process two or three times once it has been mastered

The neuroscience behind RTT

Why it works is not entirely known. Dr Muss collated much of the research with theorises why and how this works here: IARTT | International Association for Rewind Trauma Therapy | The Rewind Technique | Research and Publications

Sense-Ability for Complex Childhood Trauma

For people with diagnosed mental health conditions who are under the care of a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist, Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and Rewind Trauma Therapy can open the gate to other therapies making them less painful and more effective.

In this instance I may contact relevant medical professionals to ensure proposed therapies are appropriate.

An integrated approach

Complex childhood traumas are, by definition, hard to resolve. Traumas are enmeshed and embedded with personality. They require different therapies at different times.

The most important factors for healing are that the client feels believed, validated and supported; and the client is making choices for themselves and feels in control of the process.

Trauma and identity

Letting go of trauma that’s enmeshed in our identity is very scary. One client summed it up when she said, “I’m not sure who’d I’d be without my trauma. It feels wired in to me”.

Clients with complex trauma often come to me when they are ‘all talked out’. Many have had therapy for months or years and understand how and why their traumas occurred. They are ready to move forward.

Others come to resolve a specific trigger or trauma. Some just want soothing, calming Hypnotherapy sessions or trauma informed Guided Meditations alongside their current traditional talking therapy.

Steady progress

RTT can create dramatic shifts which facilitate healing (often rapid). At Sense-Ability, clients with complex childhood traumas are also supported with gentle Solution Focused Hypnotherapy to calm the central nervous system.

The Solution Focused Conversation

Sessions are structured to keep vulnerable clients safe and anchored. Solution Focused conversations aim to create a process of steady small steps towards stability, security and a more hopeful future. We focus on the resources and skills that helped you survive rather than the problems and pain. We call this ‘resource talk’ and it opens the window to Hope.

Through the Miracle Question we explore what we call your preferred future - the future you want - tomorrow, next week, next year. With complex trauma we don’t look too far ahead. The preferred future might start with “I’d get out of bed and get dressed” or “When I went out for a walk, I’d feel calmer.” The client is in charge of the process and nothing is forced.

Clients look for ‘what has been good, better, challenging but they coped better’. This subtly shifts people towards solutions and strengths. It’s a very empowering process that gives trauma clients a sense of personal agency.

Putting yourself back together

Resolving traumas with Rewind Trauma Therapy for clients with complex trauma involves peeling back layers and rebuilding safety, security and a sense of self. You, the client, makes the decision when and if to resolve a trauma. We may start with smaller, more easily identifiable traumas first - phobias, irrational fears, relationship break-ups, job loss, or specific traumatic memories.

This complementary tailored approach is often undertaken alongside other somatic healing practices or psychotherapy.

The Initial Consultation

The initial consultation enables Jane to explain the process and gives you time to think about whether it’s an approach that might be helpful.

What is not involved

• No analysis

• No digging into the past

• No judgement

• No need to talk about your trauma

What you can expect

• Respect

• Validation

• Support

• Compassion

• A safe and practical process

Clients are not committed to stay in therapy and can leave at any time. There are no expectations from the therapist, Jane, and no pressure.

No Harm Therapies

Rewind Therapy is a no harm therapy which is simple, and requires 2 to 6 sessions - normally 2 or 3. It’s cost effective, painless and quick. The effects are permanent and do not need repeating.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is also a do no harm therapy that can be either short term and for a specific issue, or longer term for deeper issues. The aim is to gently ‘rewire’ the mind by creating new, healthy synaptic connections in the brain.

Complementary Therapies

Rewind Trauma Therapy is a complementary process involving visualisation and relaxation that does not affect talking therapies. The aim is to reduce traumas that can be triggered to enable clients to access therapy more effectively.

This process, despite its simplicty, can have a dramatic impact, freeing clients from long held phobias and traumas.

Although founded in Solution Focused Brief Therapy, Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is still classed as a Complementary Therapy.

Please get in touch to find out more if this therapy is suitable for you.

References:

• The International Association for Rewind Trauma Therapy: www.iartt.com

• When it’s bad to talk: Guardian Article, 11 March 2008

• Solution Focused Brief Therapy: NICE evidence for SFBT

Testimonials

Dr Muss’ Testimonials are here: IARTT | International Association for Rewind Trauma Therapy | The Rewind Technique | Testimonials

Further Reading

Sense-Ability Hypnotherapy & Coaching therapies are explored in these three articles:

Can I Recover from Trauma: Including Case Studies

Where ME/CFS and Trauma Meet: A Case Study written by client ‘Penelope Faith’

Rewind Trauma Therapy for Trauma, PTSD & CPTSD: A Case Study written by client, Julie

Complementary Somatic ‘Do no Harm’ Therapies

* Please note I do not not diagnose or claim to cure. Sense-Ability therapies are complementary approaches that promote and support self healing. I do not explore how or why traumas were created nor offer traditional talking psychotherapy which requires different specialised training and supervision. For more on these services see The British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy.

Jane has the right to refuse treatment where she believes there is a risk of harm or where she believes Sense-Ability therapies conflict with your current treatment programme with a medically trained professional or a clinical psychotherapist.

Professional Integrity

I am trained and accredited to deliver only those therapies on this website by appropriate respected professional bodies (see footer). I do not offer regression. I do not claim to cure. Any transformations that may take place are down to the client’s ability to heal or resolve and results cannot be guaranteed. Always check the training and accreditations of therapists before working with them. If you are under the care of a psychiatrist, please consult them before having any complementary therapy to support you with an enduring mental health issues.

Trained in Rewind Trauma Therapy by Dr David Muss and accredited by, registered with iartt:

Jane Pendry
Sense-Ability Hypnotherapy & Coaching
jane@sense-ability.co.uk
Wheatley, Oxford, OX33 1XJ
+44 (0)7843 813 883

www.sense-ability.co.uk