Page 79 - Total War on PTSD

day. The nightmares or recollections may come and go, and a person may be free of them for weeks at a time, and then experience them daily for no particular reason. This can occur whether the person remembers the trauma or not. It can sit idly by with no memory yet the symptoms can still take place.
A person with PTSD may experience sleep problems, depression, substance abuse, feeling detached or numb, or being easily startled. So how can we combat or deal with the responses of PTSD? Because the olfactory receptors are extremely sensitive, they can be easily stimulated by very subtle and sometimes subliminal scents.
A technique was developed called Hypnotherapeutic Olfactory Conditioning (HOC), for exploiting the ability of scents to arouse potent emotional reactions. During hypnosis, the patient learns to associate pleasant scents with a sense of security and self-control. The patient can subsequently use this newfound association to overcome phobias and prevent panic attacks. This may be especially effective for PTSD with episodes of anxiety, flashbacks, and dissociation triggered by smells. The authors presented three cases, patients with needle phobia, panic disorder, and combat-induced PTSD who were successfully treated with the HOC technique.
Many combat Veterans with PTSD have an olfactory component to their traumatic memories that might be utilized by HOC therapy. Thirty-six outpatients with chronic PTSD, featuring resistant olfactory-induced flashbacks, were treated with six 1.5-hour sessions using hypnosis. Significant reductions in symptomatology were recorded by the end of the 6-week treatment period, as well as for the Beck Depression Inventory and the Dissociative Experiences Scale; 21 (58%) of the subjects responded to treatment by a reduction of 50% or more. Improvement was
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