Hypnosis

[Stir Ling]

I have made amazing breakthroughs in my therapy, and my therapist recently told me she had nothing more to offer me. I should simply start living my life again. I've learned how to manage symptoms and deal with panic, anxiety, etc. relapsing into "episodes" only very rarely. Still...there is something bothering me.

I believe I was sexually abused at a very young age, possibly as an infant, probably as a toddler. I do not have clear memories, but strange dreams come up, and when I meditate (I'm a student of Zen), I often see my father's genitals and feel an awful constriction in my throat. I have a weird fear of the bathtub. I also have this horrible daydream of going to the toilet in a baseball stadium where grown men stood to urinate in a trough, and I could see so much more than I wanted to, a child whose head lay below everyone's belts. I have also had olfactory flashbacks of dirty male genitals.

I'm wondering if anyone has ever used hypnosis to try to recall these kinds of memories. Does it work? If I could suddenly "see" what was really there, I feel like I'd know "for sure" that I was sexually abused and could "finish" it off. The horrible feeling now is that I don't feel I can say "for sure" that it happened as I have all these hints and shades, nothing concrete.

Please help. You guys rock!

 

[VDWngr1355]

I recently went to a psychologist who specializes in trauma and is also a certified hypnotherapist. That said, I went only to help relieve the anxiety- not deal specifically with trauma memories. Actually, the doctor used hypnotherapy to try to block/stop the obsessive thoughts and flashbacks about the traumas, and it really has worked thus reducing a lot of anxiety. I feel like I have more of an option to not think about them and see them on a daily basis, unlike before when it just wouldn't stop.

But to use hypnotherapy the way you want to—I don’t think it would work and could end up creating false memories that you still are not sure that happened.

 

[Hashi]

I've recovered memories following amnesia and I've also had hypnotherapy for something unrelated. I'd never try hypnotherapy to recover memories. I agree with VDWngr that hypnotherapy could leave you still feeling unsure, partly because you'd be susceptible to the suggestions of the hypnotherapist (who might themselves have an unconscious bias) and partly because hypnotherapy isn't always like unlocking a cupboard where clear memories are stored. Things can be just as impressionistic and uncertain as the fragmented images you've described.

This might sound odd, but even if you were successful in reaching memories that haven't come to you "naturally" yet, that could be a very bad idea. I've had this experience with a lucid dream, when I used the conscious control in the dream to pressure my subconscious to answer questions about things I hadn't fully remembered yet. I was desperate to know the truth about the fleeting, disjointed memories I'd had, and thought I'd ask everything I wanted to know. After the answer to the first question, though, I was so unable to cope that I didn't want to ask anything else. I wasn't ready and it was devastating. I'd never do that again.

We're given memories when it's the right time to get them. I believe that if it was OK for you to remember more right now, you'd be remembering more. It could be that something else needs to be in place before these memories become any clearer. Who knows what that might be - it could be meeting a particular person, taking up a new interest, a change in your living situation, a deeper experience of your meditation practice, or anything that will later turn out to support you through the aftermath of remembering. Or perhaps you need longer to consolidate the breakthroughs you've already achieved and have a time of quiet and stability.

My suggestion would be to use your meditation to ask if there's anything you need to know, be open to following guidance if you receive it, and otherwise let it be. (By guidance, I don't necessarily mean you'll be given a to do list during meditation, but at some point a book might catch your eye, or someone says something that gets your attention, that kind of thing.)

I know it's hard to live with the hints and shades, but I think we have to trust our subconscious minds to know what they're doing.

 

[Stir Ling]

Hashi, thank you so much for that articulate and thoughtful response!

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I know it's hard to live with the hints and shades, but I think we have to trust our subconscious minds to know what they're doing.

Thank you for saying this I needed to hear it today. It is so true.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Ok so I'm one of those odd-balls who pretty much kept her traumatic memories. (This puzzles people, as they've always been with me, they were never lost, repressed, or rediscovered, yet my PTSD developed 25 years after the fact.)

Anyway, I don't advise digging into memories. You may think that knowing all is the key to healing, but it really isn't. Of course, I don't know what it's like to be in your position. Rather, I want to caution you against taking the stance that you must remember everything so that you can heal, as it may force you into types of therapies which can suggest certain types of memories. (I hope I'm being clear...it's late here and I really should be logging off!)

 

[storycat]

Sir Ling, I had similar experiences with memories popping up after therapy for something else. If you want to know more, there is a good book that can help you gently probe and possibly recover memories by association. It is called "the courage to heal workbook". It is a workbook that asks questions that lead to better self discovery. Also, EMDR can also lead to memory recovery. That being said, you may never have a perfect, linear system of clear memories. The brain stores memories strangely, and if you were hurt as a child, then they might be very fragmented, the way children's memories sometimes work. Even if you never recover every memory fully though, there is always hope from healing from what the experience left on your psyche.