Many people understand that PTSD can make someone ‘psychotic’. If you look up what psychotic means, it is generally defined as ‘a loss of contact with reality’. This is a diagnosis deemed grave, and it is insinuated that, without drugs, it is permanent.
People who have taken recreational drugs are often deemed psychotic, because they may be seeing or hearing things which others can’t. But this may not be due to the drugs, but because the drugs have allowed a part inside of them to spring forward and take control of their actions. Bear with me and I will explain more fully. Do watch the video below or read the text beneath.
In hypnotherapy, therapists are generally told not to treat psychosis; warned it is a highly dangerous condition, and people may become violent. It is thought hypnotherapy may a ‘psychosis’ it worse. So, drugs become the only solution.
But we at Catch hypnotherapy do not believe this. We also do not believe that a psychosis makes someone dangerous, even when in tandem with drugs or alcohol.
We believe that symptoms of ‘psychosis’ occur when an upset ego part, inside the body, takes control of the mind, and/or body, and is trying to show the person what is wrong – using emotion, or images or visions. This is why flashbacks would be an example of ‘psychotic’ behaviour. The person is seeing something which others can’t, but it is very real in their mind, or they might be hearing something others can’t, or be acting in a way that is totally different to how they normally act.
Catch hypnotherapists understand the mechanism which is making this happen.
Deep down inside of us are the parts of us who have been created by a trauma, and then pushed downwards, so we can carry on our lives. When something happens, to remind the body of the trauma, any of those parts can surge up into the mind and take control. The person may suddenly feel indescribable anger, or immense sadness, or fear…..whatever the person felt when the trauma happened.
After World War 1, veterans reported sitting in a park, or waiting for a bus, and suddenly seeing soldiers with their legs blown off crawling towards them, blood everywhere, and their hearts would start pumping and they would be frozen with fear. It obviously wasn’t real, in the centre of London, but it was their body showing them, telling them, ‘Remember? It was awful. I was so scared. I can’t get over it. Help me!”
These veterans thought they were going mad, and so did their loved ones. But it was just a file, in the hard drive that was their mind, rerunning ‘the movie’ which upset them so much, to make the person concentrate on it. The worst thing is that the person – you – DOES NOT WANT TO concentrate on that ever again. But you have no choice because the body is endlessly re-running it.
When we see someone acting bizarrely, we automatically think: ‘Stay away from them, they are mad. Who knows what they will do.’ Even the medical profession will rush to use drugs to stop it. But whatever happened to that person, already happened, and they will not react any differently to how they did the first time.
A ‘psychotic’ person is essentially a person who is ‘inside out’. The ego part is on the outside. The person has been pushed aside by a strength of emotion. Sometimes they have no memory of whatever happens while the part is on the outside. They just come around to find everyone staring. The medical profession recognizes this and calls it ‘black out rage,’ even if it wasn’t rage, but fear, upset, or hurt.
We don’t like things which aren’t ‘normal’. We shun them. But these poor people – you if you are experiencing it – can’t shun it. It has taken over, for a while.
Giving someone drugs just represses the emotion, until the part gets stronger and can overcome the drug. The person might self medicate with alcohol or recreational drugs , but the part will use the dissociative feeling this creates to get its message through more easily. Ego parts love drugs and alcohol, as they facilitate uninhibited communication. That is why they call for them.
Catch hypnotherapists know that the way to resolve ‘psychosis’ is to start listening.
What happened? What caused this emotion? What impact did it have on the body? What could these images mean that seem incomprehensible? Where is this emotion coming from?
I myself have experienced flashbacks which, if they had become prolonged, would have seen me diagnosed as ‘psychotic’. Once, while on leave from the war in Afghanistan, I was in a field in France walking my dogs, and I was suddenly gripped by an enormous fear that I would step on an improvised explosive device. I fell to the ground, screaming for the dogs and my son to get down, I was screaming for the soldier with the metal detector to come forward and clear the path. My heart was pumping like a steam train. I was absolutely petrified. I was chanting repeatedly: “It’s not safe. It’s not safe.” I was aware of my son pulling at my arm and kept trying to shake him off as I buried my face in the dust. Then, almost as soon as it started it was gone. I was back in a field in Bordeaux and everything was fine. Anyone watching me would have believed I had suddenly gone mad. But this is the text book definition of psychosis. I had been in that situation somewhere else. The waving of the grasses reminded my body of the waving crops in Helmand. It put two and two together, and panicked.
Maybe you have experienced something similar. It doesn’t have to be related to war. Anything the body has experienced which was traumatic can be replayed at any moment.
Catch hypnotherapists know that, and just helping someone understand it, experience it, and put it in context, defuses the non-lucid moments. If you are trying to listen, your body does not need to hijack you anymore. It already has your attention.
You can use Catch hypnotherapy to communicate with that part, or those parts, while they are on the inside, so they don’t have to fight their way to the outside.
We have treated so many people diagnosed as ‘psychotic” now leading perfectly normal lives, with no ‘psychotic episodes’ at all.
Give us a try. No drugs required.
CATCH 