I have been successfully helping people overcome trauma for the past thirty-five years. Excellent training and many years of experience with a wide variety of presenting problems enables me to help patients heal and overcome the negative effects of trauma and P.T.S.D. symptoms. I have helped soldiers who suffered from shell shock and battle trauma, citizens who have suffered from terror attacks, or suffer from fear of terror, individuals who have suffered from car accidents, work accidents, violence, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, rape and other traumas. (Please see sidebar for a more complete list)

Most of us have experienced some kind of trauma in our lives, and many of us suffer from the results of traumatic experiences.
Examples include: fear of public speaking, stuttering, phobias, O.C.D., sexual dysfunction, fear of loving relationships – even headaches, gastro-intestinal disorders, and a variety of psychological problems and physiological symptoms.

Usually a person knows on a conscious level if s/he has experienced trauma and if it is still negatively affecting his/hers life – either on a day to day basis, or in relationship to specific events, experiences, or triggers.

However, often a person is suffering from a particular difficulty in life, and does not realize that this difficulty is the result of a traumatic event – more accurately – it is the result of the response, reaction, negative pattern, or unconscious decision that resulted from the traumatic experience.

Often, during a traumatic experience, a person enters a spontaneous hypnotic state. in which a negative response or pattern is learned and imprinted (one trial hypnotic learning).

A person can make a subconscious decision in that moment of trauma, which can be debilitating for years or even a lifetime. S/he can experience all kinds of limitations of activities and experiences, which in turn have more negative effects, such as low self-esteem, and lack of self-confidence.

Such a person can try all kinds of treatments, but they usually fail because the real source of the problem has not been discovered and properly dealt with.

Discovery of the source of the problem makes it much easier to solve. Traumas and their consequences, P.T.S.D. symptoms, phobias, stress responses, panic attacks, stuttering, sexual dysfunction, etc. – whether remembered consciously or locked and blocked in subconscious memory for many years, can usually be healed.

It is important to realize that even deep problems that have festered around for many years can often be solved. It is much easier when therapist and patient understand the dynamics that create such problems. This allows the therapist to provide the appropriate therapeutic techniques to the patient needed to solve them.

My goal is to help my patients heal from trauma and its consequences as quickly and as comfortably as possible.

I work with my patients as partners. I give home-work, exercises, and also provide phone and other E-support, when necessary or requested. (I am careful not to provide over-support to clients who have dependency issues.)

My interventions are focused, clear, healing, interactive and caring. I provide the understanding and skills needed to solve problems and achieve goals. I do my best to provide interventions that are brief, effective, and lasting.

Hypnotherapy combined with C.B.T. (cognitive behavioral therapy), and other therapeutic tools usually give my clients/patients a significant advantage over traditional therapies

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Case examples to help you to understand how I work:

Stuttering and fear to speak in front of audiences or groups, is a common example of a symptom which resulted from a trauma that has been long forgotten from conscious memory. An adult patient came to see me with the goal of stopping to stutter. We discovered in hypnosis that he had a traumatic experience in third grade. He was a sweet and sensitive child who had to read something in front of the class. He made a mistake and the class started laughing at him and said hurtful things. This child went into a traumatic state, and entered a spontaneous state of hypnosis – in order to find a way of protecting himself – and decided unconsciously – not to speak to quickly again, and to avoid speaking in front of groups.

The therapeutic tools that we used included Hypnosis, C.B.T. (cognitive behavioral therapy), desensitization and hypnotic rehearsal. My patient started to have improvement within two sessions, and got rid of his stuttering within a short period of time. (Note: everyone stutters a little when in situations of extreme pressure or exhaustion). His social and professional life improved as a result, as well as his self-confidence and self-esteem..

The therapeutic process:

With each of my patients I create therapeutic strategies, utilizing a variety of tools and approaches in order to ensure that the treatment is efficient and effective. The process that I describe below which I used to help the above patient is one that I often use to help patients overcome traumas and their consequent symptoms.

I often implement a wonderful treatment approach – (developed by Dr. Milton Erickson – considered to be one of the world’s greatest hypnotherapists ever) – as part of my treatment strategy.

First, we use hypnosis (or other means) to discover the root cause of the dysfunction. (as explained above)

I help the patient identify and learn the skills and understandings that s/he needed but did not have in order to cope and respond healthfully at the time of the traumatic event.

I then use hypnosis to bring my patient back in time (age regression) to a few days before the traumatic incident, and be there with his/her-self, as the loving helpful big brother/sister. My patient then prepares the child (in this case example, or him/self at an earlier time) for the upcoming event, and teaches what is necessary to have the event be NOT TRAUMATIC. Then my patient re-experiences the event in a healthy way. We also implement other helpful therapeutic things, like desensitization, verbal expression, future pacing (N.L.P.) and more – (but the explanation is too long for this article).

Once we discover the source of the problem it is significantly easier to solve. 

When the therapist and the client/patient understand the dynamics that created the problems or symptoms, and know how to implement the techniques needed to solve them, good results are attainable more quickly.

Please note that traumas like the Holocaust, rape, abduction, extreme violence or abuse, etc. require  more time to work on and heal. Yet, even in these situations significant healing and relief from symptoms can be attained.

My patients usually overcome their trauma in just a few sessions.

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Another fascinating example: NEEDLE PHOBIA

Trauma – and consequent phobia – caused by identification with another person’s traumatic experience.

A man came to see me who suffered from needle phobia for many years. He needed to have an injection, however, he had a fear of needles – but he had no idea why.

This phobia had been interfering with his taking care of his health properly for years. He did not want to have regular blood tests or flu shots.

He asked his subconscious mind, while in hypnosis, “where did this phobia come from”.  His subconscious mind revealed to him that when he was a child, his older brother needed rabies shots. Unfortunately his parent brought him into the doctors office where he saw his brother in extreme pain and fear from the injections.

This patient also got rid of his phobia in just a few sessions. We used a similar process to the one described above.