Hypnotherapy: Working With Physical Conditions

Our life experiences are coded, or imprinted, as memories. These will include the stimulus to the memory, the emotion, and the physical experience of that emotion – the feelings. The physical activity in the body such as posture and movement can also be encoded. When you remember a memory, or a stimulus sets off that memory, you will re-experience the same state of mind and body once more. 

(For further reference to this, in particular how we can re-experience Trauma, how we hold Trauma ‘in our bodies’, and the physiological reactions to having an emotion please see and research the works of Scaer MD and Ruden MD – these are the most concise, readable and accessible sources I know for these subjects .)

For a memory to be strongly imprinted the emotion has to be strong. As Ewing MD writes “Fear is our most powerful emotion… The instinct for self-preservation leads us to imprint dangerous memories and be alert to avoid similar incidents.”

The result of this is when we have a traumatic experience, and fear is intense, the memory is strongly encoded. This includes the state of mind – and also the state of the body. Our neurology remembers completely. 

This can account for many instances of ticks (involuntary spasms), chronic pain, IBS, postural issues, whiplash syndrome, CFS and so many other illnesses/diseases - let alone all the behavioural changes that happen. 

Memories are also plastic – they are liable to change. Every time we access a memory it is mixed with our current state of mind and body before being coded into storage once more in this changed state.

So if you have a physical condition, illness or disease, and your doctor can’t find any pathology to give the cause (and sometimes even when they can) there may still be something that can done. You may be holding the memory in your body. Change the memory, free the body. 

This blog post gives just one of the many ways that I work with clients who have physical issues.  My suggestion is that if someone tells you that “you just have to live with it”, or “nothing can be done” then keep searching. I have helped many who have been told the same. 

(Disclaimer – I do not diagnose, and I am not a medical professional. I just work with what my clients present. Should you be a person, who has been told the above, and wants to try a different approach give me a go – I welcome working alongside your medical professional so that they can be educated in the way that I work – and vice versa! I can explain matters to them in language they can understand. Also, there is also a limit to what can be done. If you have lost a leg for example, I’m sorry, you aren’t a salamander, and it won’t be possible for it to grow back. Though, I can help you with your emotional state surrounding it!)