I'm Worried I'm Traumatising Donald Duck

There are many different ways to deal with trauma and often a few different layers to work through. It takes a little time and sensitivity. One of the key reasons past events can still effect you today is due the illusion of your memories feeling real. I have a number of different hypnotic ways to disarm traumatic memories, and one that I have been using for a few months now involves Donald Duck.

I would like to say that I am by no means trying to trivialise horrific experiences in the past. I am just trying to demonstrate that memories are not the past, memories are not previous events, memories are just thoughts – they are detailed constructions in the mind to represent previous events, but they are no more than a combination of words, images and sounds with feelings attached.

I remember seeing a game show on TV a few years ago where a contestant was required to make a cake while hypnotised and told that every time he touches the cake tins they will be hotter than the time before, even when wearing gloves. It was amusing to watch. It probably wasn't hilarious for the contestant as he kept burning his hands, except he didn't. He was just imagining that his hands were burning because he was hypnotised – he was experiencing his imagination as real. What if those traumatic memories are the same as those cake tins – you're carrying them around and they are hurting you but they're not really painful.

Once you can really experience that a memory is not real, it cannot hold the same power over you, and you can therefore gain more freedom from past traumas in the present day.

So one of the devices that I have been using to do this is to inject a taste of the absurd to a traumatic memory. Again, this is not to trivialise the events themselves – the events have passed. Yes they happened, but they are not still happening, and your mind/body system needs to realise that. This simple thought experiment will demonstrate that these difficult memories that are still causing you pain are not real, and if they're not real they cannot hurt you.

When I do this in session it causes my clients to smile at a memory that had them shudder or cry a minute or two before.

If you have a memory that troubles you, visualise it and notice how it make you feel. If it troubles you it means there is a negative feeling attached – your body is responding to an image in your mind. You only feel that way because at some level you believe the memory is real. If you now imagine the same memory but with Donald Duck in it. Just place him in the memory somewhere. I feel it is very unlikely that he was there so if you can imagine that he was there, what does that tell you about the memory? It doesn't feel so real now does it?

My clients tend to feel free from trauma by the time we have finished, but I worry about Donald Duck who has now been witness to many horrible things. I had this image the other day that made me chuckle. The image was of Donald Duck entering a doctor's office and sitting on the couch saying:

“I don't know doc, I'm not sure what's happening. For a few months now I keep getting these horrible visions. They just come out of nowhere, and then I get this feeling that someone is laughing at me.”

I just hope the doctor tells him that these visions are just images in his mind and images cannot hurt him.

Take a look at the video on my Services page to get a detailed feel for how I work.