Domestic and Sexual Abuse - living with emotional scars

claim your life back with hypnotherapy

Abuse is defined generally as an intrusion into another person’s physical, emotional or mental space and violating his/her basic human right to his/her own privacy and right over his/her body, mind and emotions.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence involves physical abuse (e.g. hitting, pulling or punching, restriction about the victim’s movements within or outside the house) emotional/mental abuse (e.g. denigrating the partner about their look, work or personality, emotional blackmail, mentally torturing their self-esteem) sexual abuse (e.g. forced sex, marital rape, using the partner’s body as an object).

Physical violence is less damaging on a long term basis, strangely enough, than emotional/mental abuse as the victim can ask for help or gain attention if she cries out. Many more victims suffer in silence (they may be your colleague at work or your neighbour) because they are not hit or physically molested and thus they are confused about the abuse, because there are no visible scars to show. Your partner refuses your right to call your parents: is that an abuse? These victims keep questioning themselves and doubting their own decisions even after they leave the abusing partner; the reason being that they had started colluding with the abuser which is a very instinctive reaction in situations of trauma: after years of abuse the victim often gives in and starts following the abuser believing that the latter must be right; it is a way to protect oneself by agreeing to everything the abuser says in order to escape the next abusive blow.

The psychological trauma is carried on for years by some survivors of domestic violence; it takes psychosomatic traits like sleeplessness, nightmares, headaches/migraines, as well as emotional feelings of inferiority, feelings of shame/worthlessness, disgust with one’s self-image, restlessly going over the past which creates incapacity, in the person, to perceive the future with any hope.

Sexual Violence

People who have experienced sexual abuse or emotional incest often carry strong feelings of shame, rage, fear, pain as well as guilt. Because it is very instinctive in victims to blame themselves for the abuse so these victims often treat themselves with anger and guilt.

The sexual assault may have occurred a few years ago or as far back as early childhood. We may have survived and become successful adults in our present lives but the feelings seem to stay; we may often find ourselves feeling incredible rage with authority figures, we may feel we need to be always in utter control, we may find ourselves unable to derive any pleasure having sex with our loved ones. Sometimes the victim feels he/she has lost the person they were before the abuse took place. They become dependent on sleeping pills and anti-depressants to cope with life because they feel so helpless and worthless. They undergo some or most of the following symptoms:

• disgust with their physical body
• guilt/anger with themselves
• self-mutilations
• suicidal thoughts
• feeling powerless/worthless
• negative self-image
• relationship difficulties (old or new ones)
• nightmares/insomnias

Hypnotherapy with survivors of domestic and sexual violence

Hypnotherapy works with the subconscious mind, that part of the mind where messages have become triggers and we just react to them automatically. Messages received in a state of deep fear or trauma often sinks very deeply and settles in the subconscious mind. Victims are often in a dazed state, a trance state of fear when the messages are being stormed their way and they defencelessly receive them.

Hypnotherapy benefits domestic violence survivors in two major ways:

1. It allows their body and mind to relearn to relax; over the years the body has learnt to be in such a state of alertness, acute watchfulness/tension for the next blow that even now they find it very difficult to relax and let their guards down, which would explain the insomnias/migraines. Thus Hypnotherapy retrains the body to regain a balanced state of composure and calmness.
2. It retrains, reprograms the subconscious mind to let go of all those triggers that make the person reacts with fear and tension. For example, even years later, victims find it difficult to assert themselves with their boss or an aggressive person; once their subconscious mind picks the authority in that person’s voice it triggers in them the same reaction of fear and an inner command to run and hide away. Hypnotherapy builds in the subconscious mind constructive triggers so that the person reacts with healthier responses to tension (physical, emotional/mental or even sexual tension) as well as reprogram their mind to be more focused on their future goals and aims.

Hypnotherapy allows the tired, mutilated mind-state of survivors of domestic/sexual abuse to lapse into a luxurious state of relaxation. The conscious mind with its constant flashbacks, criticisms, judgements sleeps off and allows access to the subconscious mind. Once the person is there, with the hypnotherapist’s guidance he/she can recover lost resources of control, self-nurturing capacity, motivation, determination and assertion. Because the client is in such a state of relaxation, he/she can look and work with the deep wounds which he/she would shun in a conscious state. Destructive triggers are eliminated and replaced with past existing or new triggers for the client to react with calmness, positivism and hope towards oneself and the future.