Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: NLP Case Study Part 1

April 10, 2009 By

The Following Post is written by Emily Bernard describing her experience working with me in a Personal Breakthrough Session with the intention of clearing her PTSD and anxiety about public places.

Mark Shepard is very tall. His height is the first thing I notice about him when I open the door to let him in. The second thing is his demeanor, which is kind, gentle, and warm. He has a youthful, eager way about him. His smile says, “This is as much of an adventure for me as it is for you.”

When I called Mark, I was ready. I had arrived in New Haven in July 2008 in order to begin a fellowship at Yale. Within four weeks, I was in Yale-New Haven hospital. The doctors determined I had a bowel obstruction–my second in seven years–and scheduled me for surgery. I was lucky–my intestines somehow untangled themselves from the mass of scar tissue inside my abdomen. After a week’s stay, I was allowed to leave.

This was my second visit to Yale-New Haven. Fifteen years ago, I was stabbed in the gut by a stranger in a coffee shop. The perpetrator was sick with mental illness. He was hospitalized; everyone involved survived.

For fifteen years, I have been unable to get past certain fears associated with being in public and interacting with strangers. After one of my doctors informed me that I was just “one of those unfortunates,” people who “over heal,” or make too much scar tissue, I decided to do whatever I could to turn my fears and luck around.

Medical doctors told me there was nothing to be done; psychotherapy didn’t seem to be helping. I decided to look beyond traditional doctor’s offices for solutions.

Enter Mark Shepard.

For our first session, Mark agreed to come to my house. His generosity put me at ease, and made it that much more possible for me to take the leap into the unknown world of hypnosis. At that point, all I knew about hypnosis I had read about in books. Mark was recommended to me by a massage therapist who herself had yet to try hypnosis. “When I’m ready, Mark Shepard is the one I will go to.” That was enough for me.

Mark and I first spoke on the phone. He was friendly, prompt, and direct. I liked him immediately. He sent me some literature to help me get acquainted with hypnosis, the unconscious mind, and his methods. There were questionnaires to fill out, and homework to prepare so that Mark could come to know more intimately the kinds of struggles that had led me to hypnosis in the first place.

I liked the questionnaires and the homework. I see them as the first stage in the process of the work I am doing with Mark. They force you to articulate your problems, fears, and goals. They help you focus, and they all center around the issue of “change.” What Mark does has psychological components, but it is not psychotherapy. He gets you to identify the root of a problem, but also the role you have played in either creating the problem or contributing to its survival. The work is goal-oriented. It takes faith, work, and openness. I believe it is a process–one, for me, that has only begun.

Thanks to Emily’s willingness to share her process, you will be able to get a sense of how I do what I do to help people clear fears, phobias, anxiety, PTSD and other Mind/Body challenges. Look for Part 2 next…

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: NLP Case Study (Introduction)

April 9, 2009 By

I recently was contacted by Emily Bernard who was seeking help in healing the trauma and anxiety left over from an old wound. She was seriously injured along with 7 other people in a stabbing at a coffee shop 14 years ago.

She was in critical condition and truthfully could have died but she survived. However from that experience she was understandably haunted by the possibility of at any moment being attacked again. So she experienced a hypervigilence and unease every time she went out in public.

She also experienced a physical problem at the site of the stabbing in her body at 7 year intervals. There was no logical medical explanation for the physical problems occurring at 7 year intervals and at the same time of year. (note from Emily: “The problem was adhesions, my intestines getting tangled up in my scar tissue.  There is no procedure to solve the problem of adhesions (which are very common), no cure.”)

I appreciated that Emily was open to the possibility that the physical recurrence of the adhesions was linked to unresolved emotional material.

Another challenge was that as an exquisitely talented writer Emily was experiencing some challenges with writer’s block.

One of the greatest challenges I have as a practitioner is determining who I will work with. Every one expresses the desire to change but not everyone is willing to “get to cause” and accept “response-ability” for their change. I don’t “cure” people. I teach them how to “master their own minds for a change”. I help them to clear blocks and release old beliefs and patterns. Some people want me to just wave a magic wand and make them all better. Sometimes it seems like that’s what I do. Change can be rapid. But ultimately it’s the client making the change not me.

Emily seemed like she understood that and was willing to roll up her sleeves and do what Byron Katie calls “The Work”.

Another aspect of how I practice NLP and Hypnotherapy is to assign a task that contains in it elements of the transformation the client is seeking.

We agreed to work together and use the blog as an extension of our work. Since Emily is a writer I asked her if she would be willing to share her story through this blog.  I felt it would serve her greater purpose of writing about her experiences in such a way as to facilitate her own healing as well as to serve as a kind of beacon or resource for other people dealing with traumatic events or challenges in their lives.

Ultimately my intention is to support Emily’s healing, and transformation as well as to make the work I do more accessible and understandable so that I can help more people who like myself and Emily struggle, or have struggled, with blocks that keep them from allowing their talents and abilities to shine out.

I know that my clients and the readers who find this site are incredible people who have much to share with the world. I also know that the talented, sensitive, imaginative, creative types who have so much to give to the world often find themselves blocked. It is my belief that this blocking and subsequent healing journey is not unlike the classic “hero’s journey” that fills ancient and contemporary literature.

Stay tuned to the next several posts as Emily and I share the story of working together and clearing old patterns of thought and behavior as well as reinforcing and repatterning the new ways of thinking and being. Be a part of the process as we dig in and check our progress along the way.

In the next post Emily will introduce herself and give her account of her personal breakthrough sessions with me.

Filed Under: agoraphobia, anxiety, clear the fear, hypnosis, nlp, trauma Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,