If you're looking for a quick and reliable approach to guide and support you through the healing process of your traumatic memories, you have come to the right place.

Life is a series of events, some with and others without real consequences. While spectacular accidents or emotionally demanding events can often have little or no consequences, sometimes we get hurt. And when we get hurt, we know it because we feel it and suffer the consequences.

Emotional trauma typically results from sudden, severe, recurring, or prolonged stressful events that exceed the limits of emotional adjustment, and it can be as disruptive, painful, and debilitating as physical trauma (injury) - affecting emotional, mental, and even physical (somatic) well-being. Emotional trauma can be any disturbing experience that, until healed, manifests as emotional shock, panic attacks, sustained stress, anxiety, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disturbing feelings that have lasting effects on attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of well-being.

While physical wounds are caused only by something that actually happened, and only to the extent that it happened, emotional wounds can be caused not only by what happened objectively but also by the subjective perception of what happened or could have happened. What has the potential to fulfill or to haunt one's life is the reading of the emotional memory of an event, not the event itself. Thus, the only accurate measure of a traumatic event is how you perceive it, how much it hurts you - not the objective assessment of the event or what others think or say about it. The very good news about trauma is that, regardless of its nature and causal roots, as soon as the cause of the trauma is removed and the appropriate healing conditions are created, the innate self-healing mechanisms unfold.

When you accidentally injure your knee, the resulting pain is a reliable measure not only of the extent of the trauma suffered, but also of its location - this will help you know what the right approach is and where to focus your healing efforts. The pain that follows is not there to punish you for the accident but to signal that you are injured and to make sense of your limp as a survival instinct that got triggered to protect the injury from worsening and thus promote healing. And you'll limp as long as your knee hasn't healed and you're still feeling pain - not as long as you remember what happened! Similarly, when you are hurt emotionally, the painful emotional feelings that follow are there to make sense of the deployment of your survival mechanisms that will restrict and control your behavior to protect you from worsening or from similar injuries and promote thus healing. In the long run, limping or overreacting to unhealed trauma can poison your life by continually adding collateral damage.

When you limp because of a painful knee injury, hurry up and heal your knee, as continuing to walk injured while denying or only relieving the pain can worsen your condition. Those with congenital analgesia (who do not feel pain) have a significantly reduced life expectancy - rarely living beyond their twenties. Similarly, when dealing with emotional trauma, focusing solely on soothing or eliminating emotional pain may not be wise, as the pain is not there to punish you for what happened, but to make sense of your overreactions as a survival mechanism triggered by your unhealed trauma and designed to protect you from further injury and thus promote healing. It is therefore no coincidence that alexithymics (those emotionally numb) have a reduced quality of life and life expectancy. Just like those who are comfortable in professions that require them to maintain their composure in emotionally demanding situations, such as first responders, doctors, and especially emergency room physicians, often face a shortened life expectancy.

Even though most people associate emotional trauma with exposure to extreme, unpredictable, and uncontrollable life-threatening situations - such as war, natural disasters, major accidents, assault, or kidnapping - most of those who suffer from emotional trauma have not themselves experienced nor witnessed dangerous events. When exposed to horrible things, it is not the brain that is likely to be injured, but the guardians of moral standards, the soul and spirit, are likely to be injured when pushed to beyond our limits. Emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, bullying at school, at work, or at home are the leading causes of emotional traumas. When you reflect on your worst life experiences, it's perfectly acceptable to feel sadness or disappointment. However, if your sadness is painful and your disappointment feels more like frustration, fear, or anger long after the event, this is a sign of trauma.

When they occur occasionally, trauma, stress, anxiety, or other negative life experiences are not disorders in themselves, nor are they normative concepts. However, whatever the nature of your trauma, stress, anxiety, or other emotional issues, the moment you perceive it as an overwhelming or long-lasting experience, it is a strong indication that you are dealing with more than acute stress, which is an innate adaptive emotional response. It's time either to do an online self-assessment or, better yet, talk to your doctor. However, keep in mind that your right to choose healthcare is sovereign and that you can choose at any time to consult a psychologist or to consider any other alternative or complementary approach that meets your needs, such as hypnotherapy, EMDR, neurofeedback, touch and bodywork therapy, art therapy, etc.

Stress is not a random thought nor is it a philosophical concept - so it never really stays in your head. Chronic stress is a fearful emotional feeling that inhabits you and, occasionally, gets triggered by your wandering thoughts or the realities of everyday life! When you are stressed, it is not only your mental but your spirit, soul, and body that are stressed, and you feel it inside of you. Your mental acknowledges and confirms its presence in your life by shifting your mind into a specific, stressed state of mind. For as long as the stress is bearable, it will most likely be dissipated through the resilience mechanism, or eventually, induce bearable levels of anxiety. When the stress becomes extreme and stretches the perceived emotional tension beyond your tolerated limit, the emotional response mechanisms may not be able to handle the load, and you can get hurt, and may end up traumatized.

When the stress related to past events is lasting, and you remain constantly on high alert and irrationally focused on specific triggers related to past events, you are probably dealing with traumatic stress. In that case, specific noises, sounds, images, gestures, words, smells, or thoughts can trigger flashbacks and irrational behaviors. When a trigger reminds you of a traumatic event, time will seem to collapse, and you’ll feel a similar degree of fear or terror as you did when the original event happened. Thus, when exposed to your alert trigger, you can feel fearful or even terrorized in common situations that don’t represent any real danger to a rational mind. 

Stress and anxiety resulting from unhealed trauma often look like:

Recurring intrusive experiences

• Unexpected recall of disturbing or intense past moments

• Sudden emotional or physical reactions to reminders

• Recurring thoughts, images, or impressions from the past

• Unwanted flashbacks that feel vivid or overwhelming

Heightened Sensitivity or Reactivity

• Feeling on edge or overly alert, even in safe situations

• Being startled easily by sounds, movements, or voices

• Trouble relaxing, staying calm, or feeling “settled”

• Sudden rushes of emotion without clear triggers

Strong Emotional or Physical Reactions

• Irritability, frustration, or quick emotional outbursts

• Feeling overwhelmed by intense emotions

• Physical tension, clenched muscles, or restlessness

• Physical discomfort when exposed to certain stimuli or situations

Changes in Awareness or Perception

• Feeling disconnected from your surroundings or from yourself

• A sense that things feel distant, dreamlike, or unreal

• Feelings of emptiness, inner inexistence, loss of vitality

• Moments of “blanking out” or mentally checking out

• Trouble focusing or staying mentally present

Avoidance or Emotional Numbing

• Pulling away from people, places, or activities once enjoyed

• Tuning out emotions or going into “automatic mode”

• Avoiding conversations or thoughts related to a past experience

• Not wanting to feel or remember, even if unintentionally

Changes in Beliefs or Outlook

• Difficulty trusting others or feeling safe in the world

• A sense of guilt, shame, or self-blame, even without clear reason

• A feeling that something is “broken” inside or can’t be repaired

• A loss of existential meaning, purpose, hope, motivation, enthusiasm

Effects on Relationships and Daily Life

• Feeling disconnected from loved ones

• Trouble feeling close or emotionally available

• Withdrawal from social situations or relationships

• Difficulty concentrating, planning, or staying organized

• Reduced interest in work, hobbies, or daily routines

Disrupted Sleep or Rest

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep

• Light or restless sleep; waking up tense

• Frequent distressing dreams or emotionally intense sleep

• Waking up tired or feeling emotionally drained

Chronic stress, anxiety, panic, phobias

Self-sabotage, blockages, underachievement

Painful grief, rejection, frustration, anger, insomnia

Pain, muscle tension, spasms, contractions

Health problems related to stress and anxiety

Even though emotional trauma seems to be a highly individual experience, trans-generational trauma, or hereditary trauma, as well as behavioral patterns may be transmitted across generations through the process of parental epigenetic programming, or morphic field resonance. Thus, traumatic experiences can be passed down from generation to generation, such that children 6 years old and even younger may suffer from preschool traumatic stress and display similar behavioral issues as their parents, or their ancestors. Since in Somatic Hypnotherapy you do not necessarily need to understand or to know the exact roots of your irrational negative feelings to be able to uproot them, this approach is the therapy of choice for most symptoms related to hereditary and trans-generational emotional traumas.

Regardless of whether your trauma has been induced by dangerous events, sexual or physical abuse, bullying or emotional abuse, or has been inherited trans-generationally, Somatic Hypnotherapy is an effective tool to help you trigger healing of its manifestations by decompressing triggers and releasing symptoms. This is possible thanks to Somatic Hypnotherapy's very particular approach that disables the emotional response patterns related to a traumatic event through a quick and efficient dissociative process between the emotionaltraumatic feelings and the factual memories associated with that event.

Unlike conventional hypnotherapy approaches that focus on adding fresh layers of positive emotions over your lasting fears and traumas, Somatic Hypnotherapy is all about releasing the past by rearranging the emotional reading of the past traumatic experiences. In its change management framework, this approach focuses on changing the perception of past unpleasant events by altering the somatic component of negative emotions associated with unpleasant events. An emotional trauma is not healed until, when you think about it or talk about what happened, you hardly feel anything inside that still bothers you.

After your first session in Somatic Hypnotherapy, you will experience a significant improvement in your trauma-related anxiety, whatever its nature. You'll feel as if your heart has forgotten the stressful, anxious, traumatic, or painful component of the unpleasant events of your past, while your cognitive memory keeps intact the factual details After a maximum of three sessions, while revisiting the images, and cognitive understanding of the factual events of your trauma, you will feel as if your traumatic experience hapenned hundred of years ago, and time has erased the negative feelings associated with the event that we have worked.

At the end of your therapy, you will be able to review the traumatic events we worked on and watch them as a movie that no longer touches you. As you release the patterns of your overreactions, you will change your perception of those past experiences, which in turn will readjust your behavior. Once the healing process is completed, the victims of a traumatic event will be able to confront a past threat or traumatic memory much more rationally, and without excessive fearful feelings or uncontrolled reactions.

Following your Somatic Hypnosis therapy, you will be able to think anything you want about the once troubling events we have worked on, and your thoughts will no longer have the power to awaken your old, once painful, or unpleasant feelings. Don’t remain imprisoned by memories of what others have done: don't allow them to cripple your life.

As stress and anxiety are most likely the leading cause of your issues, before filling in the appointment request, please self-assess your anxiety online and make an informed choice.

The "No Satisfaction - No Pay" principle guarantees my integrity and applies to all my therapies.

Contact me and book your appointment today! Let this be the most exciting experience of your life, and I will be happy to help you on your journey.

You can reach me by filling out the contact form below.

Disclaimer: The content of this page reflects the opinion of its author, is provided for educational and general informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical, psychological, or professional advice. I do not make any diagnoses according to recognized classifications (DSM-5, ICD-10) and I do not interfere in any way with ongoing treatments.

If you are already under medical care or treatment, follow their advice and treatment. I am not a doctor or licensed psychologist in Quebec; therefore, I cannot establish or continue a treatment based on your diagnosis. If you decide to consult me, be prepared to tell me what is bothering you and how you feel about it. 

For any medical emergency, call the Info-Santé service by dialing 811.

*The results may vary from person to person.

Somatic Hypnotherapy - 186 Sutton Pl, suite 104, Beaconsfield, Montréal, Qc, H9W5S3