Overcoming PTSD By Erasing Traumatic Learning Experiences
Overcoming PTSD requires your brain to reconsolidate memories and learning experiences. This means that it must find a way to erase the old learning experience gained through trauma and put in place a new one that is associated with a more calm, peaceful and empowered experience.
Helping Your Brain Process
In their book Unlocking the Emotional Brain: Eliminating Symptoms at Their Roots Using Memory Reconsolidation authors Ecker, Ricic and Hulley present the most recent research on how this process is effected.
In the audio below I share the brief, three-step behavioral program necessary to erase an emotional learning. The benefit of this to you? Something to think about in terms of how you approach healing and, if you are working with a trained professional, something to ask them about in terms of work you can do together.
Michele is the author of Your Life After Trauma: Powerful Practices to Reclaim Your Identity. Connect with her on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and her website, HealMyPTSD.com.
APA Reference
Rosenthal, M.
(2012, November 30). Overcoming PTSD By Erasing Traumatic Learning Experiences, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, April 20 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/traumaptsdblog/2012/11/erasing-an-emotional-healing
Author: Michele Rosenthal
Suggestions? I had certain ways of thinking and habits as a child that are related to how I dealt with abuse. When I moved out at the age of 18, I knew I had to relearn how live life better on my own two feet outside of the bad environment. I learned to form a new identity apart from the lack of identity I had as a child. I learned many things abd let go of many things to the point that I finally had a wonderful, content peace of mind and was happy in my own skin and had many good things to share with others. Something though, because of ignoring a gut instinct, triggered a negative way of handeling a potentially positive situation and I could not believe that when my mind was finally in such a good spot that I could think something so terrible and I continued to beat myself up to the point that I started readopting negative beliefs about myself. I was in utter disgust over myself and am having a hard time moving forward from this.
Jasminita - We all make mistakes where we fall back to what I call default behavior. Especially triggers can make that happen. It's totally normal then to berate yourself for it; I see that as a very positive appreciation for your gut instinct and all the work you've achieved so far. It sounds to me like you're punishing yourself, which is one way we force ourselves to learn. However, as you're seeing, that kind of process can also lead back to very negative self-talk and abuse. Try this: Examine what you wish you had done differently in the situation. Go back through the movie of it in your mind and see yourself acting as you would have had you trusted your gut instinct. Then, examine what you learned from this trigger, how you will notice it happening and what you will do to interrupt it next time. Then, let it go the way you would release a weed into the trash. (You can do this literally as a little ritual to bring the transition into your physical experience.) Finally, do something really, really, really nice for yourself today. You are doing your best in every moment. You will make mistakes. The bigger issue is how you move forward from them.