In life, there can sometimes be a disconnect between how we feel about an issue and the truth of it, where we can become emotionally compromised or experience impaired judgment in a normally benign situation. When this happens, our reactions can become highly charged, making it difficult to think rationally and realistically. Our emotions can range from initially calm to rage and may settle at any point in between, while those in proximity to us will be affected. After we calm down, we may experience fear, embarrassment, shame, and sadness. We may become more judgmental towards ourselves or the person or situation involved when the experience occurred. When we feel emotionally dysregulated in these moments, it is often connected to earlier experiences where we felt unsafe or unsupported. At that time, we didn’t yet have the tools or support needed to process what we were feeling. The pain and associated emotions can become stored within us and may surface when current situations brush up against past feelings. Over time, we may begin to notice patterns in who or what activates our emotional response.

There are many great therapies that assist in working through these triggers. Somatic therapy and EMDR, for example, can help desensitize and process painful memories while building new neural pathways. Cognitive therapy works in bringing awareness around the underlying behaviors leading up to an event, and helps to structure thoughts before emotional buildup. Hypnosis can be an effective tool, either on its own or integrated with other therapeutic approaches. It allows exploration of the stories and emotional patterns surrounding painful experiences, helps reduce the intensity of fear through visualization, and supports processing uncomfortable emotions in a safe, contained environment.

One example involves a client of mine who was a caregiver by profession, who would experience extreme feelings of overwhelm to the point that it was becoming difficult to continue her work. While under hypnosis, we used techniques to access the first time the feeling of overwhelm occurred in relation to caregiving. We followed the trail backwards from memory to memory until we happened upon a strong emotion building. She started to verbalize, “I can’t hurt the baby, I have to take care of the baby, I can’t drop the baby,” and so on. The memory that surfaced placed her at approximately six years old, and she had been given partial responsibility in caring for her newborn sibling. Feeling overwhelmed and scared, she is afraid she isn’t up to the challenge, but believes that she is not allowed to say so. As we go deeper into these feelings, she realizes she is resentful that her mother had the baby and is angry at both her mother and the newborn. She also feels guilty because of her anger and doesn’t want to disappoint her mother. At six, she did not possess the proper skills or support to be able to express and reconcile these emotions. This appeared to contribute to her feeling not just overwhelmed and scared, but resentful and ashamed as well. These thoughts and emotions followed her into her adult life. With hypnosis, she could experience the situation through her adult perspective. She could visualize herself as the adult in a supportive role, assisting her younger self to explore and validate her feelings. She could see where this situation had created similar feelings in her professional life. Eventually, she was able to lessen the impact the emotions held and was able to resume her duties without feeling overwhelmed by the overbearing weight of responsibility.

A second example concerns an actor client who experienced extreme stage fright. Every time he got on stage, he found himself freezing up and having to push through. It was always the same, at every performance. We explored his stage fright, and a memory surfaced of him as a child performing at a school play. He was eager to do so. He memorized his lines and was proud of being on stage. At one point in the performance, he made a mistake, and a few of his classmates laughed and poked fun at him, creating a deep sense of embarrassment. Yet he had to continue the performance. We revisited the scene several times, gradually shifting the emotional response and introducing new internal resources. We used visualization techniques to reduce the intensity of the fear and brought in feelings of accomplishment and ease on stage. It took a few sessions before his stage fright dissipated to acceptable levels. I never saw him after that.

Whether you are navigating persistent emotional triggers or a fear that feels disproportionate to the situation, hypnosis can be a useful tool, either on its own or integrated with other therapeutic work to help you move forward with greater agency.

* A note about hypnosis, regression, and memory:  When we regress to an earlier time, the “memory” that is accessed is not what we would call a true memory. It is a depiction created by layers of experience, emotion, and perspective. It is the expression of what the mind does to make sense of what occurred from the perspective of the observer. It is never 100% truth, but rather the “truth” through the client’s understanding. They are still helpful, as they can open a door to finding the insight needed for resolving what was unresolved.