Conscious Choice: Healing Childhood Traumas

April 2006 | Whole Brain Adviser

Healing Childhood Traumas

By Nancy Ging, LCSW

Dear Whole Brain Adviser: Do you have any recommendations for treatment of severe childhood traumas for both children and adults? — Melody, Who Wants to Finally Feel Whole

DEAR MELODY, For children, check out Michael’s Gift in Deerfield, a charity dedicated to research, education and trauma relief for children. It was founded by Arizona-based therapist Brent Baum and Chicago-area therapist Yvonne Hedecker.

Baum is the author of The Healing Dimensions, Resolving Trauma in Body, Mind and Spirit, and emerged on the national scene as a teacher, addictions counselor and clinical hypnotherapist. But trauma work is his real deal. He has worked with 11,000 people so affected, including survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11.

However, his presence is what impressed me most. A former priest, he has a sense of substance, competence and genuine kindness, along with a sharp and clear intellect.

Baum has developed holographic memory resolution, a mind-body therapy that addresses encoded memory on both the cellular and systemic levels, and during his last visit here, I decided to put myself in his hands.

During the session I found myself flowing through his holographic memory resolution process, a unique synthesis of many things I knew to be valid and valuable. As I allowed my body-mind to bring up the knowledge of extreme trauma that had jangled my nervous system when I was in the womb and immediately following my birth, Baum touched my spine with one hand while asking me what I was feeling in my body. His other hand moved just over the place in my body that responded to the memory.

Baum believes that “every trauma creates a millisecond pause in consciousness and when that happens, it is stored as a hologram, a three-dimensional image. We emotionally go numb as this gets encoded. At that point, adrenaline kicks in to get us through the ordeal, but we’ve been hypnotized in our moment of being overwhelmed. The trauma hypnotizes us and causes an automatic encoding of an altered state.”

He helped me focus on the holographic fragment or memory long enough for it to take me back to the scene that I’d stored. He then had me visualize a happy solution to that story, creating safety. And then, he asked me to frame the picture of safety in whatever color my mind chose, since color is the nervous system’s language.

“When you move a feeling of safety for a particular trauma through your body, you can’t be in the trauma at the same time. So in that instant, the body lets go of the emotional or physical pain. My hands usually feel it leaving the system at that point,” said Baum.

This system of resolving memories offers a missing link from creating unconsciously to creating with our conscious intentionally. For some, one session may be needed for such liberation. It felt like a few more sessions would be in order for the particularly tough case that I presented, but I feel far closer to my goal, having been touched by the healing hands.

Brent M. Baum will give a free presentation on holographic memory resolution for clinical practitioners at North Shore Wellness Services, 3000 Dundee, Northbrook, Ill., 7 to 8:30 p.m. April 17. Call Michael’s Gift at 847-940-0432.

Nancy Ging, L.C.S.W. is a Chicago-area holistic psychotherapist.

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