Imagined words and images are not a threat to you regardless of that they are saying. If they feel like a threat then you are mistaking those thoughts for reality – you are experiencing an imagined idea as more real than the reality of the current moment. This is a detrimental form of self-hypnosis.

I am often asked by people who have survived trauma if I can hypnotise them to forget traumatic memories. It's a good question, but not good therapy.

At a time more than any other in our lives it is easy to blame external events for how we feel inside.