IS THERE SUCH A THING AS
FINANCIAL PTSD?
The symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are nightmares, flashbacks, feelings of anxiety for no reason, irritability, mood swings, depression and irrational aggressive behavior.
In my work as a hypnotherapist I have come across clients who display all of these behaviors, and yet they have never been in a war, they’ve never been raped or otherwise physically assaulted, and they’ve never experienced any physical trauma. But the stress of severe financial hardship is perceived by the person as a life-threatening event which is just as potentially dangerous as a knife to their throat.
During the Depression of the 1930’s, there were many suicides, as people lost all that they owned. It’s not so much the loss of material goods that provokes such an extreme action, but the sense of utter despair and hopelessness about the future. A financial crisis which feels like a hole out of which you can never climb, could surely induce these feelings.
And so, what can be done about it? Well, I believe that the main thing I am giving my clients – no matter what their presenting issue – is hope. Hope for the future, and a sense of optimism that whatever they’re facing now, and whatever they have faced in the past, they will survive and things will get better.
We can’t change the past, but we can alter its significance to the client, so they reframe their experience and view it more positively, realizing the lessons they’ve learned and the new strength and wisdom that their trials have brought them. No matter how bad things may have been, there is always some chink of light in the darkness. And once we find that chink, it’s my job as a therapist to guide the client towards the light and help them to focus upon it until it expands to fill so much of their horizon that the darkness evaporates.
