neurotherapy

We define emotional trauma as measurable neuro-physiological changes resulting from exposure to over-whelmingly threatening events. Trauma is a common human experience, although the levels of severity will differ among individuals. Sufferers usually report an inability to cope with and make sense of, the distress levels they feel. They also describe a sense of being unable to escape from the traumatic event coupled with feelings of helplessness and disempowerment. 

 

These experiences can alter the brain at a cellular level and can change the person’s thinking and emotional processing patterns. Known changes include altered neuronal firing patterns in the brain's amygdala, a structure involved in the detection of danger and threats. This may translate into cycles of negative feelings that the conscious mind tries to repress leading to delayed and often misplaced outbursts of fear and anger, as often reported in people with symptoms of Post-Traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.  Making sense of a traumatic experience and explaining it to friends and family can be difficult, and sufferers often feel isolated or stigmatised.

 

But there is hope. The neuroscience of memory reconsolidation is based on recent revolutionary evidence suggesting that the brain circuits involved in the recording of traumatic memories are unstable and, thus, able to be changed.