An active-alert hypnotic intervention rapidly deactivates posttraumatic flashbacks

Some individuals, when recalling or reliving a traumatic event, view it as something that they see happening to an image of themselves (observer perspective) versus seeing it from their original, internal viewpoint (field perspective). Twelve individuals who experienced flashbacks from the observer perspective, and who had vivid imaginative abilities, were given active-alert hypnotic suggestions that rapidly deactivated their flashbacks. The rationale for this approach is a combination of three theoretical frameworks: Putnam's Discrete Behavioral States Theory, the Predictive Processing framework, and Hilgard's concept of a Hidden Observer. This theoretical model conceptualizes posttraumatic flashbacks as activations of trauma-induced discrete behavioral states in patients who responded to a traumatic event by creating two simultaneous, and competing, types of states, one with a subjectively altered model of reality and one with a more objectively accurate model. Suggestions given without inducing trance deactivated flashbacks rapidly by suggesting that patients use their imagination to alter the images of themselves in the traumatic scenes. The procedure, the Move to a Safe Place intervention, takes only a few minutes to administer, and this article provides detailed instructions for how to provide it.