There is an NLP technique that can help. It's called context reframing. In this case you are associating the bad memory with the hospital. A tendency to phobia response, now you have a second association with your client which can want you to avoid the hospital. This probably isn't useful. This isn't to stop you feeling about the miscarriage, it's main aim is to stop your fear about the hospital.
You could try a dissociation technique. I was learning this to dissociate from the PTSD memories. You may need a therapist but you can do this in a mirror or by recording it. The visit to the hospital with your client is the one to try first I think.
I used this technique by Bandler because my flashbacks in the big house were leading me to trigger in certain rooms where I was abused, and in supermarkets in front of the cold shelves. I was beginning to fear breaking down in public and had started to avoid some supermarkets altogether. I still have memories of the apple juice rant and my supermarket breakdown and I don't have to avoid certain aisles in supermarkets and I can go into my linen room. I can sit in my tv lounge and sleep in the MBR. I often have to put borders around the film and I turn WH into a cartoon baby. I turn off the sound in the film and sometimes give WH a sqeaky funny voice, like a helium balloon. If you would like I can find the links in my thread to the abuse event, the supermarket breakdown and the facing the supermarket. Took me three visits before I could go down breakdown aisle.
Anc if you are reading this was one of my crazy town moments. I lost physical control too. When this happens I find a disabled loos very quickly. I get very anxious indeed. -------------------------------------
Think of the unpleasant memory of the hospital and relive the traumatic feelings just enough so that you can observe yourself and know when it's too much.
Recognizing YOUR reaction to the fear state will enable you to back off if it comes up. It's called calibrating and sometimes the fear is less than at other times, normalise by having a coffee or listening to music for 10 minutes.
Close your eyes and imagine you are sitting in a film theater viewing a large screen with a still black and white snapshot of you making coffee or cutting your toe nails (doing something emotionally neutral).
See yourself leaving your body from your seat in the theatre to float or walk up to the theater projection booth until you are safely behind the glass in the project toon booth. In a very detached manner, you can view you sitting at a distance in the audience looking up at the picture of you on the screen.
Stay in the projection booth to run a black and white film of the events at the hospital just as it actually happened. Run the film from beginning to end while watching you in the audience looking up at the film fully engrossed in the negative event. Turn off the sound, you can't hear it in the booth.
Stop if you feel too afraid. However, you are likely to remain resourceful because you are in the position of a disassociated observer in the project toon room (so called fly on the wall position or third position).
Once you get to the end of the film of the hospital visit and the traumatic event is completely over, stop the film in the projection booth so that there is another still neutral picture on the screen. You making coffee, safely at home.
Floating out of the projection booth and out of the audience up to the screen to enter into the final scene of the movie where everything is safe and the event has ended.
Turn on the color. Then run the film backwards very fast in your mind. Super rewind like a DVD player or sky recording on a disk. Rewind very fast in 2 seconds the whole film.
Think about facing the situation in the future or recall the past event and it doesn't seem to have the same effect or you don't really have any feelings about being in the hospital anymore.. The experience has been reframed and the traumatic emotions neutralized.
I can now go to supermarkets!
V
Thank you Lady V. I read this yesterday and did the exercise. At first I got a lot of anxiety when I was visualizing the ER and couldn't pull myself out of the upset of feeling it all again, but I did.
I'm going to keep repeating this exercise until I can do it without a charge.
Big hug,
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
