Happy new year beautiful people ! ( I know I’m a couple of months late but this is my first blog post of 2017!)
I am officially back to blogging after having started a new job and going on holiday at the end of last year.
What I wanted to talk to you all about today is a completely different type of therapy – Traumatic Incident Reduction therapy (TIR). In my experience and opinion, it is the most potent form of therapy for those clients who have witnessed or suffered a traumatic event or had a traumatic experience at some point in their life.
If you are reading this and asking yourself “what classifies as traumatic?” The answer is anything. Different events and life occurrences affect people in different ways. It could be a tough upbringing in childhood, rape, being a survivor of domestic abuse, your dog passing away, being bitten by a spider, witnessing a terrorist attack, having been molested as a child, bullied, or suffering from any kind of illness – anything that YOU feel has affected how you perceive the world today is valid.
What this technique does is release all the repressed thoughts and emotions you have in your subconscious relating to that event so it no longer impairs your vision of the real world and affects how you view the world around you.
But, how does it work?
With Adrian Sonnex, he will ask you to close your eyes and recall the event – thinking about how you were feeling, and what you witnessed with all your 5 senses at that moment in time. Once you have finished running through the event in your head, in as much detail as possible he will then ask you to recount your version of the event to him.
When you are retelling you may feel a surge of intense emotions relating to the incident. Depending what it is you might get angry, cry, be sad, disappointed, confused, feel nauseous – any emotion you may not have completely processed or let out of your system at that moment in time will then bubble to the surface. The best thing to do is to feel it with your entire existence and not try to fight its release from your mind. You may also find that as you are talking you will have moments of realisations or clarity related to the event and you will likely find that you will gain greater insights into what you experienced at the time of the traumatic event and how this has affected your current beliefs or views on life.
You recount the event until the end. Then Adrian will ask you to close your eyes and repeat the process. The purpose of this is to desensitise you to the pain of the event and release any repressed or supressed emotions associated with it. This is done by retelling it, as you experienced it, however many times you need to until you can talk about the incident feeling completely comfortable. The intent is so it just becomes a fact of your life or part of your history, not something that still agitates you to this present day.
I can only hope to convey to you the transformational benefits this type of therapy has for those who have experienced something traumatic in their lives. The changes I have witnessed in people over time, once they have done the work and been kind to themselves after such an intense therapy session, are beautiful. We all have individual struggles, but they do not dictate who we are. On the contrary, it is our reaction to this that demonstrates our true character. So be proactive about your mental health and seeking the inner peace you deserve.
