Appendix Six: Trauma Treatment Simply described, the technique works by allowing the traumatised individual, wh ilst in a safe

relaxed state, to reprocess the traumatic memory so that it beco mes stored as an 'ordinary', albeit unpleasant, and non-threatening memory rathe r than one that continually activates a terror response. This is achieved by ena bling the memory to be shifted in the brain from the amygdala to the neocortex. The amygdala's role is to alert us to danger and stimulate the body's 'fight or fight' reaction. Normally, all initial sensations associated with a threatening experience are passed to the amygdala and formed into a sensory memory, which in turn is passed on to the hippocampus and from there to the neocortex where it is translated into a verbal or narrative memory and stored. When an event appea rs life-threatening, however, there can be sudden information overload and the s ensory memories stay trapped in the amygdala instead of being passed on to, and made sense of by, the neocortex. While trapped in the amygdala, the trauma memo ry has no identifiable meaning. It cannot be described, only re-experienced in s ome sensory form, such as panic attacks or flashbacks. The rewind technique allo ws that sensory memory to be converted into narrative, and be put into perspecti ve. Once relaxed, clients are asked to recall or imagine a place where they feel tot ally safe and at ease. Their relaxed state is then deepened. They are then asked to imagine that, in their special place, they have a TV set and a video player with a remote control facility. Next, they are asked to float to one side of th emselves, out of body, and watch themselves watching the screen, without actual ly seeing the picture. (This is a means of creating significant emotional distan ce.) Clients next watch themselves watching a 'film' of the traumatic event. Th e film begins at a point before the trauma occurred and ends at a point at which the trauma is over and they feel safe again. They then float back into their b ody and imagine pressing the video rewind button, so that they see themselves ve ry quickly going backwards through the trauma, from safe point to safe point. Th en they watch the same images, but going forwards very quickly, as if pressing t he fast forward button. All this is repeated back and forth, at a speed dictated by the individual conce rned and as many times as needed, till the scenes evoke no emotion. If it is de sirable to instil confidence for facing the feared circumstance in the future for instance, driving a car or using a lift - they are asked to imagine a scena rio in which they are doing so, and feeling confident and relaxed. Once accompl ished, clients are brought out of trance, and the work of the rewind technique is complete. Seventeen clients needed one session of rewind, 11 clients needed two, and two c lients needed three sessions. However, in no case did the same trauma need to b e treated twice. All clients with a single trauma needed only one session. On a verage, clients needed four rewinds in each session. Rewind, however, puts a trauma into perspective very neatly. The treatment takes only a short time, perhaps close to the length of time the incident took to oc cur - a terrible experience but a tiny part of an entire life. By relocating the traumatic memory from one part of the brain to another - the place where it wa s meant to end up in the first place, it rebalances the experience within a per son's life.