Managing Emotional Flashbacks
What they are like and a method to defeat them
In our first piece in the four part series on emotional flashbacks, we discussed the definition of emotional flashbacks and how they change survivors by interrupting their daily lives.
This article will attempt to explore what it is like to have an emotional flashback and the 13 steps to manage them proposed by Dr. Pete Walker.
A Short Recap
Before we delve deeper into our topics for this piece, we must take a moment to recap the definition of emotional flashbacks.
Flashbacks are definable and connectable to a singular traumatic event and include a reliving of the event through the five senses. In a flashback, survivors are transported back in time to relive the trauma with all its sights, smells, sounds, and feelings.
Emotional flashbacks are different. They seem disconnected from the current existence of the survivor and include the triggering of emotions instead of the five senses. Emotional flashbacks are like having a nightmare while you are awake.
Survivors experiencing emotional flashbacks are stranded in the feelings of danger, hopelessness, and helplessness that they felt in the actual traumatic events. If, for example, the survivor as a child was…
