Stressful and traumatic memories may be some of the biggest impediments during talking therapy. They are difficult for most counsellors and therapists to help clients with. Traumatic memories are stored very specifically in our brains. Fortunately today we have a range of processes that can allow us to simply and rapidly update these traumatic memories so removing the emotional punch they have. Today treatments for traumatic memories are routine instead of specialist. The therapy processes work because of the availability of research and brain scans.

Treatment Processes

One of the first of the brain scan therapies which can be done quickly is identify the symptoms you experienced during your traumatic event. This is a quick and easy process to identifying the symptoms you experienced.

They are the electroencephalograph and a series of behavioural scales. These symptoms can be also treated with a combination of other brain scans. For these reasons the cognitive scan may be used as part of initial screening and in combination with other scans are being used in long term treatment and also to look for if any other brain abnormalities exist.

* Brain Scan - An fMRI (functional MRI) shows you brain activity in relation to the event.

An EEG measures the electrical activity of your brain.

Each of these can be done quickly. I have found that the behavioural scales as well as the other scales have been very helpful. Each of these scales works well to identify symptoms.

* Visual Analog Scale - The VAS (visual analogue scale) lets you weigh your emotions. It is not well suited to rating the intensity of the emotions and does not distinguish between different emotions as easily as the other scales do.

* Mood Formulation Scale - It does not have to take as long as the VAIS. It can give a number for you to compare against. The mood formulation scale does have to go through a process. When I measure mood for a client I weigh the merits of each of the words on a word cloud to see if they are really all equally weighted. The final word still has to be scored for meaning by me and then sent to the client for approval. It is a long and complicated process.

* Episodes - Episodes are more easily obtained through the VAIS. The VAIS can be of limited use. It asks you to rate from 1 to 10 how bad the symptoms were on a scale from 1 to 10. It is not clear where to take the timeline for the last symptoms. Episodes need to be scored on a timeline and put into time order. It is not clear how to break the time into episodes.

If you are considering the VAIS please remember that it is not suitable for the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD.

I have found that the behavioral scales as well as the other scales have been very useful. Each of these scales works well to identify symptoms.

Identifying the best stress treatments is probably the biggest investment can make in your recovery.

* Visual Analog Scale - The VAS (visual analogue scale) lets you weigh your emotions. The mood formulation scale does have to go through a process. It asks you to rate from 1 to 10 how bad the signs were on a scale from 1 to 10.