Dr Ann Williamson

In the aftermath of the London bombings, as after the Manchester bomb and other similar events, there will inevitably be people suffering from PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They will be having flashbacks (re-experiencing the event as though it were happening again with all the associated terror and fear), nightmares, increased anxiety, and avoidance of travelling to places linked with the atrocities or of going on the tube or bus. It is as though a "part" of the person is still stuck in the traumatic event. Many of these people will eventually come to receive some form of counselling and this is a plea to counsellors not to re-traumatise their clients. When getting someone to relate all the details of traumatic events they inevitably slip back into an "associated" memory and feel the emotions as though it were happening all over again. This regression (going back into) and abreaction (outward expression of the emotions attached) is often used to treat traumatic memory but is only useful if as at the same time as the emotionally charged event is being experienced, the client knows that they are safely in the present supported by the therapist. Too often this does not happen and the client just re-experiences the emotion yet again. Even when done correctly it is often very traumatic for both client and therapist to work in this way and using "dissociated" methods are kinder and just as effective. By "dissociation" I mean viewing the event from a distance as an observer, and this can be done in many different ways. The client then starts to take control as they help that "younger part" of themselves realise that however terrible the event, they survived. The client starts to take control by changing the images in some way, helping that "younger part" of themselves in whatever way they feel right - after all they know better than anyone else what they needed to feel better. Often someone can be helped even before therapy commences, just by suggesting that they change something in the image of the flashback - one client who had been held at gun point changed the image of the gun into a yellow banana. The aim of treatment of PTSD is to know the event happened but to let the associated feeling go. Please do this in a dissociated way to be gentle and effective with your clients!