Piers Bishop explains the rewind technique for treating PTSD

PTSD, phobias and trauma are NOT life long conditions, and can be treated quickly and easily with the rewind technique, a non voyeuristic and fast method of detraumatising both individual and extended traumatic events.

Piers Bishop, a Human Givens Practitioner who specialises in treating PTSD explains why the technique works, what happens during it, and how to get help fast.

Don’t let suffering from PTSD or trauma symptoms control you, watch this video and change your life.

Posted by: Eleanor

Human Givens Journal – Issue 53

The latest issue of the Human Givens Journal is now out.

Major articles

Angry Soldier, unstable diagnosis, unholy muddle: Traumatised servicemen and women are getting a raw deal because of squabblings over diagnoses, says Piers Bishop.
Extract:

“From being incandescent with rage, B, the soldier who was going beserk, now just feels regret about the lost time: ‘I feel sad about the two years I drifted through and wasted, and regret at all the hurt I caused around me. But I now feel that I am able to get on with my life without the intrusive effects of PTSD. I have become much calmer and to this day have not had one flashback or re-inactment episode. I threw out my anti-depressants. I have reconnected to those around me and have been able to hold down a job . I can control my drinking. I hope that the detraumatising therapy which healed me gets the recognition it truely deserves, as it quick and effective. The alternative is wasteful and will put a burden on the already overstretched NHS. For someone suffering from PTSD, there is nothing to lose in having the rewind treatment, and the opportunity to get their life back.'”

The meanings of psychosis: Our own cognitive and perceptual ‘fault lines’ can help us understand psychotic patients. Michael Garrett, David Stone and Douglas Turkington explain

Helpless to help: What it is like to care for a psychotic brother when professionals don’t know how to help

Ask, don’t tell: Noël Janis Norton discusses with Denise Winn how even the most challenging of children can be motivated to learn

“How can you sleep at night?”: Denise Winn finds out how lawyers cope psychologically when defending clients accused of committing abhorrent crimes

On the receiving end: Caroline Gallup describes the emotional upheaval she and her husband experienced during stressful infertility treatment

The carrot and the stick: Mark Evans describes how his use of rewards and punishments in therapy has helped clients quickly achieve change

The journal is also packed with the usual news, views and information, book reviews and letters.

You can read more about the quarterly journal here and subscribe to it here. (UK yearly subscription =£30, Overseas yearly subscription =£38)

Posted by: Eleanor

Words from an Iraqi psychiatrist

Dr Haidr al-Maliki was as an army psychiatrist during Saddam Hussein’s regime.

He now works as a child psychiatrist at Ab Ibn Rushed Hospital in Baghdad. He lives with his wife and four children.

“There used to be about 80 psychiatrists in Iraq, now there are just 20 to 25.

And some of them will leave. Fifteen or so will eventually go to the UAE or to Jordan; it’s difficult.

About a year ago, during Ramadan, four boys aged about 15 to 20 came into my private clinic, in front of my patient.

They asked “Are you Dr Haidr?” I said yes. And they shot me several times.

One bullet went into my right shoulder, another into my right arm. I am left with nerve injury and muscle atrophy.

Afterwards they told me I couldn’t go to my clinic and that I had to leave the country. They didn’t say why.

So, now I don’t go out, I just stay at home. My own private jail.
During Saddam’s regime we could take our families to the cinema.

I want to drink, I want to dance, I want to visit my friends. But I can’t do anything. If I even think about going for a drink in my club 500m from my house, I will be killed.

Iraqi people are living in difficult times. Most of us have been exposed to aggression: attacks in the street, car bombings, kidnappings.

Most Iraqi people now deal with each other in an aggressive way; they show disturbed behaviour; they have lost their civility.

We don’t know how to treat these problems really.

But I can’t leave Iraq. If I and my friends leave, who will help our people?

Limitations of care

I was asked to open the child psychiatry centre in Ab Ibn Rushed hospital, but I have no training in children, really.

I read books and I try to help.

Most of the children are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, especially those who have been exposed to kidnapping.

Most of the children I see are bedwetting. They have disturbed behaviour or epilepsy.

We treat them with simple medication; it is very difficult.

Most of the families come here for help and sometimes we can do nothing for them, except offer support and advice.”

See the original article here at the BBC news site.

Posted by: Eleanor

Fast treatment denied to traumatised soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan

The 18-month wait endured by front line troops before they can get treatment for their panic attacks, anger outbursts, nightmares and flashbacks hit the headlines with a vengeance over the weekend.

However, many aspects of the story were not covered by journalists, for example, the scandal that “government guidelines recommend CBT for treating PTSD” when this is known to be a largely ineffective treatment for this condition. No wonder it was reported in The Sunday Times that a trustee of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association said: “I’ve never come across any veteran who was happy with their NHS treatment for PTSD.”

Another strange aspect is that American research clearly demonstrates that about 25% of people exposed to traumatic events develop PTSD and yet the MOD are maintaining that only 2% of front line troops go on to suffer these debilitating symptoms.

If you know of anyone who needs detraumatising go to our online register to find a human givens therapist who will usually be able to help a sufferer quickly using the rewind technique. This non-intrusive and safe psychological technique (which is taught on our workshop: The fast trauma and phobia cure), is regularly used by HG therapists to relieve people of post-traumatic stress caused by a wide range of traumatic events, from accidents and severe sexual abuse to injury sustained in bomb blasts and experiences of war.

For more information about trauma and PTSD, click here.

Posted by: Ivan

The UK needs more than ‘Supernannies’

A few weeks ago it emerged that the Youth Justice system in the UK has reached a crisis point – with literally only a few beds available.

In response, the Government is targeting parents with their £4 million “super nannies” scheme – which will install 80 child psychologists in high crime areas to teach parents good parenting skills.

I was speaking this week to an array of psychiatrists, psychologists, GPs and other health workers at a MindFields workshop and they were all in agreement that, whilst the intentions of the Government may appear to be good, changing the way children are brought up cannot be done as a short-term, ‘sticking plaster’ task of the kind politicians love so much. No one in the room felt able to trust politicians’ ability to do much to change things for the better. The feeling expressed was that they are floundering on the major issues of parenting, mental health and anti-social and criminal behaviour in just the same way they are over the war in Iraq.

To really make a difference requires long-term – a project lasting decades. That requires a bigger, more ‘true’ organising idea about what makes for a good life if it were to carry the population with it. The work would involve changing the very nature of our culture and its priorities. Just sending in 80 child psychologists to deprived areas to give ‘parenting classes’ only scratches the surface and, ultimately, will fail unless the fundamental needs of people can be met in the environment in much better ways than they are at present.

And it really must be seen as long-term endeavour. The brains of some children are already so damaged by their upbringing that they will remain a burden on the rest of us until they die. To stop this sad state of affairs getting worse will require an almost superhuman effort driven from a clear vision that guides the work over decades.

Until all agencies, education, health, government, media, work in tune with nature – the ‘human givens’ – and start to create a healthier culture by pushing for the kind of changes needed, there will be no meaningful improvements made.

The group I was talking to were unanimous that current government policies, by encouraging the infantilising of the population instead of helping it mature, are incapable of working because the laws and systems are too complex and hopelessly unrealistic. If this is a true reflection of the world we are now living in it’s not surprising then that many children are not growing up to fulfil in healthy ways what they might otherwise be capable of.

However hard parents try, many can’t help the fact that they are bringing up their children in a deeply uninspiring, criminally inclined environment that is culturally shallow. They live in a world where greedy, selfish behaviour is encouraged by strong exhortations to emotional expression that are constantly demonstrated and encouraged through the media (strong emotions, happy or sad, keep us ‘stupid’ and easy to condition) and families are collapsing.

When can we trust politicians?

We talk to a large number of people in the caring professions and education, thousands every year, and it is clear that there is a breakdown of trust between these people and politicians. No one expects politicians to do what is needed any more, yet they all expect politicians to interfere and make things worse. Despite this, changing our corrupting environment does require political leadership of intelligence and perspicacity. Even if only some of the taxpayer’s money that is wasted each year by government (£83 billion pounds according to the European Central Bank) was spent more wisely, much could be done to achieve what is actually needed, as required by the reality of the situation, instead of political ideology.

But on the present showing there seem to be no politicians interested in creating a healthier culture, or, if they do exist, they are so bogged down in power struggles and autistic bureaucratic political and civil service systems that they can’t operate. Whatever the reason, until politicians start to sincerely seek help from people who know how to facilitate making it easier for the innate needs of children and adults to be met more healthily in this country, and back them with money, the situation will deteriorate further. Children will continue to get their innate needs met but do so in ways that diminish them and society at large, as when a child’s need to connect up to larger groups and have status is satisfied by becoming part of the local delinquent criminal gang because they have no alternative.

Working with the givens of human nature should be the touchstone of any Government policy.

Posted by: Ivan