Hi Peter,

Sounds great let me do some more work on this and I'll get back to you. Soon I hope.

Gary

Hi Everyone,

Interesting post here and some really good discussions and advice, I'd like to add my own thoughts.
ptsd was one of the major reasons that I began to learn NLP I was 2 days into a practitioner course and realised at a deep level that this could help my friend who had been pilled and ignored by traditional doctors. His ptsd stemmed from Bosnia and some fairly horrid experiences there.
more here
NLP Tip 32 - Acceptance is the WD40 of Change

I know the label of ptsd gives us something to "collect" around, Remember the person in front of you is the key. Everyone I've met diagnosed with ptsd or other "issues" have one thing in common.
The process they run to have the behaviour they dont want is as individual as themselves, if that makes sense.

How's this, Who's up for a modeling project, maybe placing an Advert Bandler And Grinder Stylie? if you know the phobia cure story - Bandler version.

Wanted military or ex military personnel who had ptsd and got over it.

With the previous posts from Gary and Peter I would like to introduce the idea that it is possible that "knowing that who you are talking to has some inclination of what it is you have gone through" may also be put another way, as deep rapport.
Understanding Rapport and being in deep rapport with someone often (in my experience - yours may vary) nurtures a sense of 'knowing' what it is they've gone thorough, people just get the sense that this guy/gal really "gets me".

That said, there seems to be a large desire to understand why "it" is the way it is by some people. I suspect that understanding may in this case really be the booby prize, understanding why doesn't change how it is. Looking forward to having already resolved the issue may provide more clues of how to build a strategy to get there.

As always, if you find something useful here - Great. If not, disregard at will.


Enjoy

Andy

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your input it is very illuminating to me. I read the link and it made perfect sense to me as it was some 15 years after my experiences in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Afganistan that i sought out help, up until then no one could have convinced me to change.

deffinately well worth remembering.

Gary

Hi Andy
I agree with you on many points.

The rapport issue is an interesting one. I believe if you have good skills and understanding of the process ( not the mirroring matching stuff) you can create and develop rapport with clients from all backgrounds.
However there seems to be a pre-cursor to this one in that in order to get the opportunity to establish rapport you have to have been 'one of them'.

As that's pretty unlikely for most of us we need another way of opening the door. That's where I see Garreth as being a door opener. Once in I'm sure we can get past those obstacles. Part of rapport is building confidence and trust that as Milton put it, if they understand that you sincerely want to help and you can convey that in the right way by really being there in your attitude.............

However I'm interested to discover more and look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Peter

light wrote:

I know the label of ptsd gives us something to "collect" around, Remember the person in front of you is the key. Everyone I've met diagnosed with ptsd or other "issues" have one thing in common.
The process they run to have the behaviour they dont want is as individual as themselves, if that makes sense.

How's this, Who's up for a modeling project, maybe placing an Advert Bandler And Grinder Stylie? if you know the phobia cure story - Bandler version.

Wanted military or ex military personnel who had ptsd and got over it.

Andy, I think that's a splendid idea, and after modeling a group of people who have successfully navigated themselves into more healthy ways of living, patterns should become evident. The processes might vary, but I wonder if the solutions would all share common elements which brought about success.

Thank you, as always, for your insightful posts!:cool:

Phil

Hi Peter, Gary and all of you!

Great to hear from you, thanks for your feedback on this, this is very interesting.

peter108 wrote:

However there seems to be a pre-cursor to this one in that in order to get the opportunity to establish rapport you have to have been 'one of them'.

I think I get you here, but for my own clarification. Do you mean by "them" ptsd sufferers or members serving or retired of our military?

I was just thinking about the clients I've had over the years with various wants, needs and desires, most of which I had no direct experience of wanting needing or desiring. For example, I've never been afraid of flying or had a phobia of dogs and yet people have not seemed resistant or difficult because I wasn't one of them.
At the same time I totally get what Gary is saying about his friend who went to ptsd counseling and was sat with people who just had no idea of the type of trauma he'd witnessed / been part of. Looking at it with a pragmatic hat on,
maybe his sharing was really useful to the group and put into perspective DIY trauma or similar for some of them.
Let me make this clear, to someone at the mercy of something like this ptsd the content is enough to create problems for people no matter what it is, diy to combat, to the individual it is a horrible and often debilitating experience.

peter108 wrote:

Part of rapport is building confidence and trust that as Milton put it, if they understand that you sincerely want to help and you can convey that in the right way by really being there in your attitude...........

I second that Peter.

And also I think its worth re stating what Gary said
"up until then no one could have convinced me to change."

This reminds me soooo much of my own learning and development experiences, "You can't know what you don't know yet", of course as soon as it falls into place it's all very obvious. and the sad truth is that some people don't ever make it out of that quagmire, convinced that no one understands, how could they right?


Unrelated to ptsd but a possible insight into the difference between military thinking and civilian thinking for me is perspective, as I write here I'm reminded of a sales training many years ago in corporate far far away..............................

In my first job in the corporate world after leaving the military I went to work at a multinational and was on their initial training. It was recruitment, so lots of stuff about sales, negotiation, customer care and retention and so on.

A particular section was dedicated to dealing with difficult clients, overcoming objections and similar, the trainer told lots of horror stories about rejection, got fully associated and into the role of "It's difficult to sell/close deals/etc" (not a great training with what I understand these days, but this was a while back).

The trainer told us all about how difficult/rude/obnoxious people are (according to her model of reality) and I said at the time

"But they cant kill you, Right? we are just talking about a telephone call aren't we?"(Less than 12 months out of combat duties)

"No, what are you going to do if the phone get slammed down."

"Er, Call someone else?"


so where does that get us?

Well maybe there are differences that make the difference, and maybe one of those is already "being one of them". The thing that keeps coming back to me here though, is people are people, If you carry a perception that it may be more difficult to reach these people, then it definately will be. Fortunately the opposite is also more true! (maybe ;-) )

When you accept that not everyone - no matter how messed up their behavior (to me/you /us) - wants help or wants to change or even believes it is possible.
But and this is a biggy for me, If they have taken the time and made the investment to come and see me, I assume that today's the day for something to happen.

I heard Richard Bandler say on one of my first NLP practitioners trainings
"I'm an N L P er, I don't take past histories"
As a statement of reality, this doesn't sit so well with me. In my experience some people do feel the need to give some history, and that's fine.
I think of the above statement as more of an attitude,
"The past is over, it isn't happening right here, right now, in this room, so what shall we move towards?"

Well, I just realised I've been key tapping for a while, so I'll rest it there for now.

As always, these are just ideas, some may fit others may not yet, take what's useful and leave the rest.

Enjoy

Andy

Hi Andy
quote
"I think I get you here, but for my own clarification. Do you mean by "them" ptsd sufferers or members serving or retired of our military?'

For clarification I mean military personnel in particular in this context of the thread.

As Garreth points out, because many of those with PTSD keep it to them selves and only tend to talk with others who have shared similar experiences in combat as this I guess gives them common ground and a subject to instantly build rapport around, as an outsider the worst thing would be to say to someone, " I know how you must feel." Don't let this next suggestion seem light, but if you have to work a room of people from corporate land who do not want to be there, you start by pacing that and reframing another perspective of common ground by use of a relevant story.

I would work the opposite line of thought by pacing and leading their experience that I cannot begin to appreciate what they have experienced, but I do know some veterans who were able to lead different lives as a result of the same things we will do today. The rapport would need to be built on honesty within the pacing and leading build up for the outcome frame.

In the case of service personnel, someone like Garreth who has their understanding and camaraderie, could soften the way in by "selling" the method of NLP. Not in technical terms but with use of stories about himself, anchoring many things to move them from distrust to trust and from impossible to possible. With some thought regarding the presentation delivery to a small group it should be more than possible to help these people in a way that is sincere and covert.

Garreth (or someone like him) would be the bait in such a situation.

Peter

Hi Peter

thanks for clearing that up for me,

peter108 wrote:

..... by pacing and leading their experience that I cannot begin to appreciate what they have experienced, but I do know some veterans who were able to lead different lives as a result of the same things we will do today. The rapport would need to be built on honesty within the pacing and leading build up for the outcome frame.

Very nice.

Lots to think about. What a great thread!

enjoy

Andy

Hi everyone,

Well this thread has turned out to be a very interesting one, there is certainly enough 'will' within the NLP community to make this happen. Anyone have any suggestions as to what the next moves could be? I like the way Help for heroes was set up and the fact that in a very short space of time since it's inception it has become very big indeed and is doing a great deal of work out there.

Thanks again everyone

Gary

Dear Garreth, (and all),

In response to your original post, I have worked with many ex and current serving personel around their trauma related issues, and continue to do so. As regards some immediate advice, please see the previous PTSD thread that Matt Sims pointed out as I contributed to that one and do not want to dive into repetition just now, save to say that I think NLP has a lot to offer folk who suffer these syndromes.

I agree with you that it is a massive problem nationally, and as one traumatised young man I saw a few months ago pointed out "there are a lot of very messed up young men due to be returning to the UK soon". He was talking about Iraq.

I am sure you know already of helpful specialist organisations, but they are not explicitly in this thread. I refer to "Combat Stress" and "Veterans UK" both of which I have found to be helpful to their intended Client groups over time, if rather overloaded.

As Peter points out, "Combat Stress" for example offer a range of interventions including CBT, Art Therapy and EMDR, but not NLP. EMDR is also available on the NHS.

Again I tend to agree with Peter that sticking to process is all that is necessary, and that there is more to rapport than matching and mirroring. IMO pure process yields better results. There are however a number of issues almost unique to working with serving and ex service personnel that do not help in engagement with treatment. While I think process works best, some people do want to talk about what they have been through generally, but in the case of the military, there is "The Official Secrets Act" that is perceived by some as an obstacle to more mainstream NHS or private treatment, because they can't or should not talk about it. Maybe this is one reason why serving personnel might feel more comfortable with other service people.

Other issues, in my experience often get in the way of effective treatment of the original PTSD, especially when it has been going on a while, such as self medication with alcohol or drugs, fractured relationships, homelessness and associated depression etc etc.

I think another big problem is the (wrong IMO) commonly held public perception that serving personel are or should be immune from such problems. That dismissive attitude is one I have often heard expressed and even if not said outloud, lack of interest or congruence from the would be helper will be communicated and will sabotage rapport. Also the lack of clear public perception about what the wars abroad are about, lack of public support for the polititians who send troops there and a general ignorance/indifference about what goes on "over there" do not help the sufferers feel valued or supported in treatment. All too often it seems, these serving personel see a GP in civvy street and get sent on their way with a low key antidepressant that at best is mildly supportive, rather than curative, passes for treatment and leaves the sufferer feeling that their's is a problem that cannot be treated.

I think that you Garreth may be in something of a unique position to have the respect of your colleagues from the services suffering with PTSD type syndromes as well as connections with NLP. Unlike Peter and his associates in private practice, I am not in a position to offer any voluntary services, but IMO there is clearly a need.

I wish you all the best in developing your ideas further.

Regards,

MH.

Fascinating post - i am relatively new to NLP (just done a few brief courses, had a breakthrough treatment and read a number of books and will be doing practitioner training soon) I learnt hypnotherapy 20 years whilst working as a hospital doctor/ psychiatrist and was intrigued by its power.

I now run a crisis management company which amongst other things provide acute trauma support to those impacted by disasters and other crises. We are about to start a project modelling the type of person best suited to offer emotional support (psychological first aid) to those bereaved and/or traumatised by a critical event.

It has occurred to me that NLP could have some great application for the treatment of PTSD. I am bemused by the “wariness" of the professional circles, who perhaps have their own motivations for protecting their own corners.

I would love to help on some sort of modelling project in this area. Perhaps my medical background and 10 years experience of running a crisis management company may help to get something off the ground.

All comments appreciated-

David Perl

Going off on a bit of a tangent here,I've just read a newspaper story about treating PTSD with beta-blockers.Despite the claims that the newspaper makes about "erasing" traumatic memories it seems more likeky that the drug merely makes the traumatic aspect more difficult to access whilst it is still being taken,rather than being a one-shot cure.
I was referring to the article itself,and the inferences drawn from it,rather than other research.