Traumatic Birth Recovery 3 Step Rewind Therapy

This therapy is a brief intervention that seeks relief of PTSD symptoms after 2 or 3 face to face sessions. Occasionally the process needs to be repeated but, in most cases, people report a significant diminishing or complete eradication of symptoms and heavy feelings.

Duration – 2 x Face to face sessions plus a follow-up zoom call for the third session

Session one 60 minutes, session two 90 minutes, session three 90 minutes.

The symptoms experienced by someone who has gone through a traumatic event can be distressing day to day. Constant replaying, or avoiding the memory, hyper vigilance, anxiety and anger can all wear away at a person’s confidence and resilience after a while. It is natural to wonder when will these heavy feelings will leave?

The fight or flight response is one of our most primitive survival systems and is designed for to allow us to act in the face of life-threatening danger. The highly aroused emotions of fear and helplessness present during the trauma become inextricably, biologically linked to the memory of the event.

From a neurological point of view these symptoms can be compared to a faulty burglar alarm that is triggered and goes off for no reason. A person suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms is triggering their fight or flight response unnecessarily when there is no present danger, constantly reliving what happened and igniting the feelings all over again each time.

The rational, thinking part of our brain (pre frontal cortex) can be thought of as the policeman in this scenario. He tries to reassure the owner (the traumatised person) that nothing is wrong, but he can’t be heard over the alarm. This is why sometimes well intentioned advice to ‘move on’ or ‘get over’ what happened is pointless because the connection has been made and so it is extremely difficult to rationalise or to wilfully stop the thoughts or feelings.

The benefits of the 3 step process

If talking about the traumatic birth experience makes you feel uncomfortable there is no need the share what happened to you. You will need to remember it yourself, but you can do this without re-telling.

This treatment is equally effective 3 months after the event as it is 3 years or even longer after the event. If PTSD symptoms or heavy feelings are still evident then the treatment is useful in eliminating them. Or if you recognise that some of the unhelpful responses that you have day to day, as a result of what happened, then treatment can help.

The treatment involves 3 stages:

The first is important pre work. We get to know each other, and talk a little about your experience, how you feel, how it effects your life currently and how you would like to be and feel in the future. It’s important to emphasise that you don’t have to tell me details of what happened if it is too upsetting for you, but you do need to give me sense of how you feel about it. We then practice a guided relaxation session, to allow you to feel a sense of ease, that will support you in your next session.

The second session is the rewind. This is carried out around 1 week after your first session. We review the previous session. Then I guide you into a deep relaxation, which is an important part of the technique. I then lead you through a visualisation to “rewind” your memory of the event. This has the effect of disentangling your memory with the negative emotions attached to it whilst feeling safe and secure. In this state, you then have a window of opportunity to reprogram the way you think and feel about your memory. You can then imagine coping in the future and responding differently.

In the third session – via zoom or in person can be arranged, we review the changes that have taken please and assess whether the technique was successful. It might be that other things have come up and more work needs to be done. But hopefully you will find that you can now remember your birth without the negative emotions.

If you feel you are affected by your birth, or experiences around this life event, and want to move on and feel happier and more at peace in your life, then please get in touch.