Traumas & Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

When we experience a sudden unexpected threat to our well-being or even to those around us, the brain is ‘traumatised’ and goes into overdrive and fixates on the threat. The most classic cases tend to be with all forms of physical and sexual assaults, even burglaries (a violation of our personal space); car accidents; witnessing others being harmed; disasters (e.g. London bombings, earthquakes, tsunamis) and of course being present in war zones.

After the stressful event is over the brain tries to overcompensate in an attempt to never put you in that same stressful situation again. It does this by becoming fixated and hyper-vigilant about that same kind of threat in the future. It’s ‘alarm’ or ‘red alert’ radar just won’t switch off and can get stuck. For instance, if you have been assaulted by a man with a beard, your brain will ‘red flag’ any bearded men you come into contact with, regardless of how well you know them and safe you used to feel. As far as your brain is concerned, it no longer trusts the association of ‘men with beards’ and is not taking any chances. PTSD is often missed because it it masked by depression, since untreated PTSD usually slips into depression.

You may be suffering from Trauma or PTSD if you experience:

• Constant intrusive thoughts
• Feeling of impending doom
• Heightened startle response
• Difficult being present – feeling distracted, agitated, restelss
• Difficulty getting to or staying asleep
• Loss of enjoyment to things you previously enjoyed doing

Help With Trauma & PTSD

Unfortunately the general ignorance for diagnosing and providing the correct treatment for trauma and PTSD, even among GPs, results in most treatments being medication for anxiety or depression and referrals for talking therapies. Medication is not addressing the untreated PTSD and talking therapies can actually make things worse by reliving the trauma in the patients’ mind, inadvertantly reinforcing it. Instead, a ‘mechanistic’ type therapy is needed to ‘de-traumatise’ the underlying trauma. With the correct help, this can take as little as 1-2 sessions. Felix Economakis is highly experienced at de-traumatising people suffering from all forms of PTSD. He has treated rape victims, veterans, victims of assualts, muggings, car crashes and war zones. He uses a combination of EMDR, the Rewind Technique and clinical hypnosis to perform powerful, fast and lasting treatments for PTSD.

Benefits of Treatments for Trauma Include:

• Feeling like yourself again
• Able to focus on other things again
• Regaining good sleep, appetite and presence in life
• Lifting of anxiety and depression

Contact us today and let's start treating your PTSD.