All Articles by Mike Reeves-McMillan, MA
Mr. Reeves-McMillan is a hypnotherapist and health coach in Auckland, New Zealand, with a particular interest in non-drug alternatives to pharmacological intervention. He's currently creating the Emotional Circuit-Breaker Toolkit, a collection of techniques for managing emotion more effectively using mental techniques.
Climbing Through the Window – How to Heal Past Trauma
Especially as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, more and more people are becoming aware of the debilitating effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Not only war, but natural disaster or a personal trauma such as a sexual assault or a severe accident can also cause PTSD.Memories tied to strong emotion are naturally more vivid. This is a survival mechanism -- strong emotions are associated with important situations, so it is naturally more important to remember those situations in order to avoid them in future (or seek them out, in the case of strong positive emotions).
Conditioned Response – An Alternative to Antidepressant Drugs?
Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel and colleagues published an article in Neuron titled An Animal Model of a Behavioral Intervention for Depression. Using mice, they investigated the mechanisms of "learned safety" and its antidepressant effect."Learned safety" is created in mice using classical conditioning. By playing a tone only when the mice were safe from an electric shock, the team taught them to associate the tone with safety. They were then able to achieve an effect comparable to giving the mice antidepressant drugs by playing the tone while the mice were undergoing stress.
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Future Posts
Latest Posts
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