What Is Holographic Memory Resolution?
HMR enables individuals who have experienced trauma to access memories of these past experiences and heal from them without becoming re-traumatized or overwhelmed by painful feelings. This innovative approach to therapy, which is grounded in somatic psychology, emphasizes the mind-body connection, and trained practitioners can utilize this technique to help individuals release past trauma and emotional and physical pain. ​
DEVELOPMENT OF HMR
HMR, which originated in the 1990s, is still a relatively new approach to therapy. Addiction counselor and clinical hypnotherapist Brent Baum combined elements of somatic, color, and energy psychologies, ​expanding on the work of psychologist David Grove to develop the noninvasive emotional reframing technique. 
While the technique was originally developed as a strategy to support people in outpatient programs for addiction in resolve the painful memories and triggers that could potentially lead to relapse, Baum’s work with survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 showed HMR to be of significant benefit in the resolution of post-traumatic stress, whether the trauma was a single event or repeated instances of abuse.

This person-centered approach to therapy employs techniques meant to encourage the rediscovery and visualization of memories in a safe and secure environment, and many mental health professionals now use HMR to help those they are treating resolve trauma without needing to relive or revisit it. Instead, people can identify and address specific memories and can often achieve healing. 

HMR THEORY
Unresolved trauma can have a negative long-term impact at the physiological, cognitive, and emotional levels. Psychologist Milton Erickson suggested in the 1970s that emotional pain linked to past trauma could lead to a self-hypnotic state when triggered in the present: When an earlier emotional experience is resurrected, the body and mind attempt to prevent further pain by activating a state of self-hypnosis. These states, which are known as trance states, can form the basis of many psychological conditions and relational difficulties in adulthood. 

The longer stress and trauma are sealed and stored, the more likely it is for related concerns to develop, both on the physical and the emotional level. The goal of HMR is to remove the memory storing—encoding—that has taken place with the formation of the traumatic memory. By redesigning the encoding, the emotionally charged response to the memory can be altered to allow a more positive or neutral reaction. Therefore, the person is freed from the negative emotional impact caused by the memory. The goal of HMR is to allow the person in treatment to be able to experience the memory without the pain it originally caused. 

HOW DOES HMR WORK?  
In an HMR session, the provider works with the person seeking to resolve trauma by providing support and neutralizing the pain through reframing. Typically, HMR begins with energy work. A gentle hypnotic trance is induced to allow the person's conscious mind to relax and access the subconscious. Therapists frequently use guided visualization to identify the history of the presenting issue and its emotional associations, making use of color in this process. Individuals are encouraged to visualize events and describe the emotions experienced through colors and symbols, reimagining painful or challenging events until they no longer have the same traumatizing effect. 

HMR practitioners assist individuals in identifying areas of the body where difficult memories are stored and help them release these memories through emotional reframing. People find this process empowering and usually report experiencing relief from longstanding problems as they find themselves seeing the world in a new and more positive way.

HMR is not typically a lengthy therapy. People receiving HMR often report a swift resolution to their symptoms. 

ISSUES ADDRESSED WITH HMR
Unresolved trauma can often have a negative impact on life. Not only can it have a harmful impact on a person’s mental and emotional state, side effects of unresolved trauma may affect physical processes as well. HMR theorists believe the restoration of properly functioning cellular structures can serve to increase the immune system’s effectiveness and prevent disease in addition to improving mental and emotional well-being.
Studies show HMR to be effective for the treatment of a number of psychological and somatic conditions, among them:
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Chronic pain
  • Post-traumatic stress
  • Addiction

​This technique can also address feelings of fear, powerlessness, and anger in people with unresolved trauma histories. Many people find it possible to recast their memories through HMR, ultimately becoming able to view these memories in a less threatening context. This process can positively impact mental and emotional health as well, as it can bring about the improvement of symptoms often resulting from unresolved trauma. 
HMR may offer a number of benefits to people who have experienced trauma.
  • It is a brief method of therapy shown to have long-lasting results.
  • It can help people access traumatic memories where other treatment methods have been unsuccessful. 
  • It does not require people to analyze or relive past trauma.
  • It often has an empowering effect. 
  • It may be a good alternative for those who do not wish to pursue visualization or hypnosis.

FAQ about Holographic Memory Resolution

Does Holographic Memory Resolution require me to 'relive' a trauma?
Not at all. While some forms of trauma therapy involve viscerally re-experiencing a trauma, with HMR there is no need to relive the full experience. HMR's verbal technique provides a gentle method of focusing on the memory fragment, just long enough to access the scene of encoding. Once accessed, the scene is revisualized with the necessary corrections.
How are memories accessed with Holographic Memory Resolution?
It utilizes a verbal technique which helps the individual to focus on the area of the body where the primary encoding took place -- the nerve center(s) where the body attempted to first contain the pain. Upon focusing at this site, the holographic nature of our memories allows us, via this fragment of memory, to return to the original millisecond of encoding.
How are traumas released with Holographic Memory Resolution?
By using the holographic nature of the bodymind, HMR enables the client to transmit a corrective holographic signal, usually employing the primary language of color, to the subconscious mind, thereby updating the protective program that is holding the memory fragment and demonstrating the client’s own capacity to create safety. HMR is teaching us that we are equally capable of as efficient a release of the pain of memory as we are of its expedient encoding.
Does Holographic Memory Resolution work for anxiety?
Quite frequently these conditions involving shortness of breath, feeling “a weight on the chest” or constriction in the chest area, are simply the indications that a trance was induced during a traumatic experience. Even a “physiologically or allergy-induced asthma attack" can prove so shocking that the nervous system encodes it as a “trauma” (i.e. trance state). At the moment of induction, the asthma symptoms become holonomically encoded and can now be triggered by anything similar to the original circumstance. Much labeled “asthma” is a “PTSD relive” of the original asthma attack and not necessarily a chronic asthma condition. It is a proven fact that one of the nervous system’s automatic (autonomic) responses to a traumatic episode is the constriction of the nerve center in which the threat is first perceived and a simultaneous “holding of the breath” as an effort to stop or contain the painful experience. These conditions are often labeled as “asthma” or “panic attacks” when they are simply reflections of an original traumatic episode. This is most evident when simple questioning reveals that the “attacks” began with a traumatic event. This can be readily determined.
Does Holographic Memory Resolution work for depression?
To put it bluntly, most depression is situational in origin: enough trauma has occurred to induce blockages to the nervous system, its meridians and fields. The cells and fields of the body subconsciously and automatically encode painful experiences in the effort to prevent us from overwhelm. Such encodings involve the storage of holonomic images with the painful emotional state of the moment bound within. These encoded memory fragments present as a painful, low-frequency energy of notable, measurable density. When such densities are repeatedly encoded in the nerve centers of the body, they naturally alert us to their presence by slowing or impairing the energy flow through the cells, meridians, and fields of the body. The body appears heavy, lethargic, and constricted, proportionate to the number of traumatic memories encoded. Biochemically, these trance states created by the L-H-P-A System repress T-Cell production, impairing immune system and endocrine system functioning. In addition, since these encoded memories are holonomic (hologram-like), they require only a small sensory fragment from the original experience to become “active.” With a sufficient number of traumatic memories stored in the system, much energy is spent in these triggered, burdensome trance states, resulting in feelings of lethargy, blockage, and impairment. Consequently, when we address the memories, the dense, negative charge of the original trance is resolved and the body and nervous system are proportionately relieved of the trauma-induced depression. Remember, however, that prolonged exposure to trauma can result in a type of depletion of neurotransmitters, whereupon outside assistance may prove beneficial. Naturopathic and herbal remedies are now also available. I have been much impressed and aided by Chinese herbal remedies.
Does Holographic Memory Resolution work for chronic pain?
In Brent Baum's book he documented two cases of chronic pain. In one case was a woman who was addicted to pain meds for over thirty years, resulting from a car accident that occurred when she was seven years old. The doctors even reported that she had permanent nerve damage from the accident and continuously prescribed pain meds for her. When they actually accessed the accident scene, she discovered that the accident involved an emotional trauma of lying by the interstate with her legs crushed, while no one would stop and help her or her unconscious family members: at that moment she realized she might die and encoded the scene as trauma. When we reframed the scene and brought her promptly to the hospital, the trance resolved and all the pain suddenly vanished. Brent himself did not believe her at first, having read the substantial documentation affirming permanent nerve damage. When the trance was resolved all of her pain resolved as well. The fact was that the only pain present was that produced by the unresolved trance state. Her pain never returned, and her “recovery program” was, quite obviously, much easier to maintain. Many “chronic pain” patients are in trauma- induced or trauma-enhanced pain conditions that could be eased or alleviated with appropriate reframing. Perhaps we should do the simple check for trauma induced pain-trance first, and only operate later!
Does Holographic Memory Resolution work for PMS?
Often mistakenly diagnosed in many women when, in actuality, a trauma has been induced through overwhelming emotional or physical circumstances surrounding their first menstrual period; this condition can also be brought on by a specific emotional or sexual trauma. When the sensations similar to the original trauma arise at the advent of the monthly period, the “trance goes active,” thereby resurrecting the same constriction in the nerve center, the same “cramping” and sudden mood shifts that accompanied the original experience.

REGAIN YOUR SELF

Your Body Holds The Key To Resolving Your Past
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  • History and Trauma Intake
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