HEALTH
Mental Health, Therapy
and the Fire Service
I have worked closely for over ten years with the Fire service across England
and Wales. One common feature of those years was the sense that so
much anxiety, psychological pain and disturbance goes unaddressed. In
one of the workshops I have run since 2006 (training up fire setter advisors) I
have been privileged to many service personnel’s trauma stories – both from
working in the service and family history. I quickly became aware of just how
much difficulty individuals accept as part of their daily life when actually this
could be addressed with some concise, targeted therapy. A big concern is
how much of this underlying psychological stress gets imprinted on children
and other adults in contact with the sufferer.
Since 2006 I have treated hundreds of people for big and small traumas
– part of their day to day work and in some cases historic difficulties that
continue to haunt them.
What are Trauma symptoms?
The surface symptoms that show up when
you have experienced a trauma can range
widely: flashbacks, nightmares, changes in sleep
routines, phobias - that may seem completely
unconnected to any obvious difficulty,
relationship issues, mood swings, panic attacks,
anger outbursts, depression or listlessness, anxiety
and even suicidal thoughts.
What happens to the brain when someone is
traumatised?
What is clinical hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy is a method of addressing the
automatic part of you - the unconscious - to
achieve your goals or resolve an issue. Sometimes
I say being a Clinical Hypnotherapist is a bit like
being a computer programmer with people.
Trance is a natural state we experience every
day - during daydreaming, reading a good book,
even driving. Clinical hypnotherapy uses these
natural trance states to work on your goals and
symptoms. This sounds a bit mystical – it’s not!
What is EMDR?
EMDR is a specific form of therapy faster, deeper
acting – on the root cause – and it doesn’t
depend on you spending hours talking through
the details of your difficulty. It has a respected
and diverse clinical evidence base that is
acknowledged by the National Institute of Clinical
Excellence, the NHS and many psychiatrist and
medical practitioners. Currently the number or
registered practitioners in the NHS is quite limited.
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Imagine this.
You eat a banana and your digestive system doesn’t
digest it. What would happen? Well probably the banana
would begin to rot inside your body slowly and pervasively
poisoning you. Symptoms begin to emerge that seem to
be unrelated to the original banana event. Imagine the
consumption of that banana was 20 years ago and in the
here and now you have seemingly unrelated symptoms.
Often a patient may have experienced a difficulty –
they may or may not remember this consciously. If this
happens in very early childhood or under extreme pressure
it is sometimes forgotten or masked as a protective
psychological mechanism. As the ‘undigested’ memory sits
in the unconscious part of the brain, the raw emotion, belief
and bodily sensations can creep into everyday situations seemingly unconnected to anything in particular. Traumatic
material is therefore buried in the unconscious, and a bit
like Kryptonite to Superman, from time to time renders the
sufferer a period of low functioning.