Memories And Your Behavior
Patrick Glancy
You know you can think of happy memories and feel the happy emotion, if you let yourself. Just like you can think of a scary or sad memory and feel that emotion.
Our mind stores all of our memories and they're always active, just not in a way our conscious mind is aware of. Because of this, we can constantly be affected by the emotions in our memories. Even memories you don't think you 'remember'.
Memories with traumatic emotions can cause disorders like post-traumatic stress and depression. They can also cause other disruptions in your life like problems with anger, fears, and stress.
While medication is commonly used for these issues, it only attempts to dampen the symptoms rather than treat the cause. The issue rarely goes away with this type of treatment.
The key to long term help with these issues would appear to be the emotional association with the memory. What would happen if that association could be erased, reduced or even changed?
There is research using a medication called propranolol that can be used as an "amnesia drug". The purpose is to directly disrupt the connection between our memories and the emotions they are associated with.
The study, described in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, talks about psychiatrists at McGill University and Harvard University using the amnesia drug to interrupt the memories of trauma victims. The drug reduces the emotional part of the memory while leaving the conscious part of the memory.
This resulted in people that can remember the memory, but have a sense of detachment or dissociation from the event. The permanence of this process and potential side effects are not yet known.
There are also ways to reduce and change the emotions associated with memories. These processes are well established and have no side-effects.
Specifically hypnosis. Proper hypnosis seems more effective for this process since, when you are in hypnosis, you are using the emotional portion of your mind. This is especially true with memories containing strong emotion from childhood. When experiencing memories from childhood will generally 'feel' the age you were when you created the memory.
Before a hypnotist uses modern hypnosis methods with traumatic memories, they must be properly trained. With the proper training, this process is safe, rapid and reliable. Clients often notice a difference after one session.
Working with issues with these methods are about updating perceptions, and beliefs. Not just in a conscious way, but also in a subconscious, feeling way.
Patrick Glancy, NGH Board Certified Hypnotist http://www.quickhypnosis.com/store/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=26) Stress Management http://www.quickhypnosis.com/ Quick Hypnosis - Self-Help Hypnosis on CD and MP3 Download
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