EMDR &
Accelerated Resolution Therapy
Online PTSD and Trauma therapy in Texas and Colorado
The brain loves images
In many cases, people with PTSD are troubled by images and sensations from a life changing event that cannot seem to be resolved even with years of talk therapy.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) are similar in that they train clients in Dual Awareness. Both use a client’s memory to assess what is still stuck in the nervous system. Using various elements of the memory such as images or sensations and using eye movements to maintain present awareness, EMDR and ART help clients move swiftly through processing.
EMDR focuses on an Adaptive Information Processing model which utilizes the brain to move a client toward a positive outcome. With ART, client’s can expect to collaborate with their preferred outcome through image replacement. This Voluntary Image Replacement (VIR) results in bringing immediate relief to the negative mindset around the past event and releases the clutches of fear keeping them from peace.
Thank you nervous system but I’ve got it from here!
Your nervous system is designed to send messages to keep you safe by signaling alert, calm, rest and digest. The trauma or stress response can continue to play out years after the event occurred. Even when you think all is well and you are healed, suddenly thoughts and triggers come flooding back.
Your nervous system is a like a jukebox on autoplay. What would it be like if you designed your own playlist?
In a session of EMDR and or ART you will recount your past event, see the images and let yourself feel the sensations with the help of eye movements to keep you focused and calm. You will work out what the brain and body have been holding onto to protect you from further harm but this time connect with it and control it so you can decide when and where you need to respond.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy
Created by Laney Rosenzweig LMFT, Accelerated Resolution Therapy, otherwise known as ART®, is currently an evidence-based psychotherapy treatment approved by the SAMHSA (Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration) registry of evidence-based techniques and is listed as approved for trauma, depression, anxiety, and resilience. It is also listed as a promising psychotherapy for Obsessive Compulsive and other mental health disorders.
ART uses therapeutic eye movements which reach back to ancient Ayurvedic Medicine and have recently been credited in Western practices such as Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
Unlike other modalities ART takes a directive approach in allowing the client to remain in control of the session in a more creative way through selected positive imagery. (Rosenzweig, 2016)
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing)
Created by Francine Shapiro, PHD in 1987 by discovering that spontaneous eye movements created desensitization effects. Following this discovery Shapiro continued with the discovery through research with Vietnam Veterans and sexual assault survivors using short term EMD for PTSD. In1990 short term EMD became EMDR through various scales which increased awareness and expanded processing toward more spontaneous associations of the client’s memory.
Today, EMDR therapy has become a comprehensive approach that addresses the physiological storage of memory and how it informs experience. Change is understood as a byproduct of reprocessing due to the alteration of memory storage and the linkage to adaptive memory networks.
Careful attention is given to images, beliefs, emotions, physical responses, increased awareness, internal stability, resiliency, and interpersonal systems in achieving the effects of EMDR therapy.
After an EMDR or ART session, often clients report a newfound sense of calm when recalling their past event, memory or stressor.
Because the negative emotions, sensations and images have been reprocessed, the memory holds no charge and can be remembered just as facts.
In EMDR and ART a client is not directed to talk about their past event or memory
only directed to recall it in the mind and body, internally!
