That would be the Holy Grail of trauma therapy but no one I know has found it, or rather they haven’t found a way to reliably replicate it.
Marsha Lineham was in the middle of a period of deep disparity had a deeply religious experience which seems to have transformed her. She had been suicidal and felt beyond help, but the experience helped her turn her life around.
She went on to found dialectical behavioral therapy and programs for patients with borderline disorder. The therapy emphasis learning skills which help patients to learn to calm down, manage emotions and such.
However, the therapy isn’t a one time event and it’s interesting that Lineham didn’t attempt to duplicate religious experiences to help patients.
Thats interesting, I didn’t know the founder of DBT had that background.
FWIW, people with conditions like PTSD and BPD have far higher rates of smoking cigarettes than the general public. A big reason is because cigarettes contain nicotine, and nicotine activates the parasympathetic nervous system so it helps them regulate their nervous system.
Using electricity to stimulate the vagus nerve through things like tragus stimulation or a vagal implant can also increase activity of the PNS. Those are used for various mental health conditions.
Come to think of it, I can think of one case where a single incident can suddenly and permanently change mindset for the better: When you have a phobia, and you’re suddenly exposed to the thing you’re phobic to, in a sufficient intensity, and then nothing bad happens afterwards, that can sometimes break the phobia.
There is a type of therapy called exposure therapy, in which people get slowly exposed to what they have a phobia to, but the suddenly exposed with sufficient intensity usually doesn’t work.
I’ll buy “usually doesn’t work”, but it does at least sometimes work. It happened to me, with house centipedes, when one fell from the ceiling and landed on my hand.
Psychedelics sent me on a way different path than I planned. Not precisely a “successful” path, but I doubt I would be a software engineer without the interesting effects of LSD, and later a variety of other substances of varying levels of legality. I quite firmly believe the mental challenges “opened my mind”, and at the very least taught me that there are alternative ways to think.
My plan was to be an English teacher, just like my mum. Instead, as in the cliché, I turned on, tuned in, dropped out.
I have had very, very bad trips (massive paranoia) but many good ones, which have very positively affected me (particularly the combination of both MDMA and LSD)
On the whole, I consider my experiences as a net positive; but I am fairly experienced. Both chemicals are, as my friend group say, “not for tourists”.
Having had a bad trip on MDMA, of all substances, I’d not recommend either for the average user.
OTOH, MDMA and various related chemicals are still legal in my native Zimbabwe, because the mills of justice neither grind finely, nor move particularly fast…