Many years ago when I first began my journey through psychological studies, I held a naive thought that I would be taught how to figure it all out. Some golden ratio for humanity.
The sad days, the bad ones, why sometimes the rain on a window would just create an ambient background for my music and on darker days drive a wedge between me and my friends and family.
Here’s the thing, your cognitive ability is not going to figure it out and make you feel better. Sorry.
Your feelings and emotions can be triggered or shifted, you can gain traction against the gravity of despair. You can acknowledge the dark shadows of grief and begin to accommodate this with kindness and self-care.
Ultimately the big bad in all of this is your neurotransmitter balance and that can create a paranoid distortion on a calm day or warm empathy in the middle of a crowded supermarket.
The science fiction writer Philip K Dick wrote about a device called a ‘mood organ’ in Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep?”. This machine would shift and change your emotions to get you ready for the day. It was an accessory to an alarm clock. Imagine a world where you could choose.
Would you?
Therapy for Change offers a Neurotransmitter Questionnaire to all clients who book a three or five session pack.
From this detailed investigation we can look at your emotional profile , recommend certain supplements, identify possible factors that might be causing difficult emotions and together with talk therapy, self-soothing techniques we can make a difference.
In many cases once we have found the right amino acid for you, it can make a difference in minutes.
Let’s look at an anonymised example.
Client 30, highly anxious yet good at masking their emotions. Operates mainly in fight or flight throughout their daily life. Overwhelm produces a complete shutdown of all emotion.
This client showed the following test results:
| Serotonin | 55 | 61% | |
| Norepinephrine | 21 | 70% | |
| GABA | 21 | 70% | |
| Endorphins | 22 | 73% | |
| Blood Sugar | 18 | 51% |
Any score over 30% indicates a level of distress which is causing issues on a daily basis. As you will see every score is above this, but the primary issues are with Endorphins closely followed by GABA(gamma amino butyric acid) and Norepinephrine(noradrenaline).
The neurotransmitter results show just how wired and panic driven this client was – so my initiative is bring nourishing calm and help the client recognise that quietness can be safe.
We began with basic protocol to support neurotransmitter production, B vitamins, Vitamin D3/K2, Magnesium and Zinc. In addition the amino acid GABA was used to provide a sense of calm.
When taking GABA for the first time the client is instructed to place a small amount of the powder under the tongue(sublingually). Within a few minutes this usually produces a sesnsation of calm. If not the client can take some more. In this way the client is more in control of dosage and feels safe and in charge of their own emotions. Sometimes we just need to gain a small amount of control in order to centre and feel better.
The opposite of GABA is histamine. Histamine is manufactured in the body to produce wakefulness and increase arousal. In some instances histamine will of course cause inflammation, an allergic rash or as part of any healing process in response to an invader. If you contemplate for a moment that the invasion could be an intrusive thought or traumatic memory, then you can appreciate how this client was functioning and getting through their day until they reached overwhelm and shut down.
Once we unlocked a safer way of dealing with this client’s stress we could begin talk therapy and teaching self-soothing techniques such as EFT/Matrix.
If you would like to book a free initial phone consultation or book an appointment Contact Here
Therapist and Psychologist 