The mind is an amazing machine – it has instant protection mechanisms that help to keep us safe from many things in the world, and for the most part does a great job of doing so. However, sometimes in traumatic situations, be that a fight, an accident even war, our unconscious mind has trouble separating us from the past and it seems to get stuck in a perpetual traumatic state. This is ultimately what post-traumatic stress disorder is; our mind and body emotionally stuck with an associated response to trauma, even if it isn’t happening now.
In the mid 1970’s, the founders of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder devised an NLP technique from an assortment of tools that came from Dr. Milton Erickson’s work with hypnosis and Fritz Perls work with Gestalt Therapy. This process is still taught at the NLP Practitioner level and is called the Visual Kinesthetic Dissociation Process.
The basic premise for this process is to recreate a memory where one is separated from their feelings by being outside one’s own body. Ultimately, watching themselves in a dissociated position flow through the old event to a point of safety and wholeness.
With NLP, you can assist yourself and others to release trauma, move on from the past and disconnect from events that still affect them. This specific NLP tool is widely used to assist military Veterans overcome PTSD and is the main NLP tool used in a study being conducted for NLP Research and Recognition project with a current success rate of over 90%!