Experiences that are distressing, painful and, perhaps, even traumatic are unavoidable in life.
But are there ways we can work with people to prevent memories of traumatic events from developing into PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)?
One possibility that’s being investigated for accomplishing this is a method called “updating.” This approach uses verbal techniques to change how traumatic memories are consolidated in the brain.
Basically, “updating” tries to decrease the conditioned fear response that can lead to PTSD.
You see, there’s a period of time known as the “consolidation window,” when fear memories are being established and strengthened in the brain. This window usually lasts about six hours after the experience of a traumatic event.
The updating technique has been used with some success in the treatment of people with chronic PTSD, but only recently have scientists begun to look at its use for preventing development of its symptoms.
Dr. Victoria Pile from King’s College London, United Kingdom, led a team of researchers in an experiment designed to look at strategies for updating fear memories.
The researchers randomly divided 115 healthy participants into updating, exposure, and control groups.
Participants in the updating and exposure groups watched a series of six film clips showing human and animal distress, while the control group viewed non-violent clips with otherwise similar content.
In an attempt to alter the way memories were being installed, researchers gave participants in the updating group an introduction that devalued the distressing material they were about to view.
Participants from all of the groups kept a diary to record feelings of distress they experienced while watching the films. They also completed The Impact of Events Scale-Revised at one week following the experiment.
Participants in the updating group reported significantly lower rates of PTSD symptoms than the exposure group at the one-week follow-up. Their self-reported measure of distress was only 19.7 for the updating group, compared to the exposure (27.2) and control groups (25.5).
Now, we can’t generalize these findings to assume we’d see a similar outcome among people who have experienced trauma in real life. Watching a distressing video clip is not likely to produce the same level of fear as experiencing a traumatic event.
Also, the study used only self-report and contained only a one-week follow-up.
It would be interesting to see further studies conducted among participants who are considered at-risk for developing PTSD, or in a setting (such as a hospital emergency department) that could target people with this intervention shortly after they’ve been exposed to a traumatic event.
In addition, we know that working with traumatic memories can be tricky. When helping patients who have experienced trauma, we need to pay close attention to the meaning they associate with their memories.
Participants in this study may have ascribed a wide range of meaning to the various film clips they viewed, so that’s an aspect of this research that may need to be examined more closely.
Regardless of these limitations, efforts toward working with the “consolidation window” to alter the way fear memories are stored could prove promising in our work with patients who have experienced trauma.
If you’re interested in reading more about this study, you can find it in the April 22, 2015, edition of PLoS One.
The more we know about memory consolidation and techniques for working with how the brain processes fearful experiences, the better equipped we’ll be to prevent and treat PTSD.
For more on how to work with traumatic memory, be sure to check out the Treating Trauma Master Series.
You’ll get insights from: Peter Levine, PhD; Bessel van der Kolk, MD; and Pat Ogden, PhD.
What techniques have you seen as most effective in working with traumatic memories and fear? Please leave a comment below.
Emdr and EFT are very effective in treating trauma. The latter is also an amazing self help technique which everyone should be taught from childhood to self calm and regulate emotions – for little T and big T experiences.
I am concerned that very little follow up support was offered to those watching the violent material which could have been affecting them over a longer period.
I think the “consolidation window” is an important factor in changing a person’s present experience of trauma and its future effects. A person’s body stores past trauma and also stores reactions to current traumatic events. In helping someone recognize the way a current traumatic event has affected them physically and in addressing it physically as well as mentally/emotionally, they can move through that experience and release it and prevent further damage in the future. Helping people get in tune with the current state of their body and their physical responses to life and trauma, and learning how to positively affect change is tremendously healing.
Thank you
interesting thank you
Very interesting experiment and outcome on memory network formation.
Thank you very much,
Vasilica Vasilescu, PhD
May be afterwards it is more likely to be preventive work for lesser consequences affecting the brain function, which means the memory. Doing so often could trigger the procedural memory but I am questioning abou t the process in trying to reconsolidate the memory. Dr. Peter Levine has been great in showing some of his somatic work, and I really love his work.
Participants in the updating group were “treated” prior to the traumatic experience. How is that helpful when intervening after the experience of trauma?
I found the referring to the “emotional autonomic response” by Dr. Peter Levine very interesting since he describes it as a learned and kept in memory response. i don’t know how hypnosis can help in retrieving traumatic events from our memory. but as a prevention, staying away from the horrific and terrifying views is a perfect response, as many researches have shown about TV viewing and violence. I do enjoy the suspense from action movies from time to time but try to ignore the the loud soundtrack because it generally disrupts the attention, and the thrill.
The Psychophysiology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic at ECU uses biofeedback and psychophysiology to help Americas wounded warriors heal the emotional wounds of war.
Carmen Russoniello, PhD, LRT, LPC, BCIAC was the President of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. He is currently Associate Professor and Director of the Psychophysiology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic at East Carolina University. He teaches undergraduate and graduate biofeedback courses through a first of its kind global classroom initiative and directs a biofeedback program for Wounded Warrior Marines at Camp Lejeune. The novel biofeedback intervention involves EEG and heart rate variability feedback and includes the use of virtual reality. Dr. Russoniello is himself a former Marine machine gunner and decorated Vietnam combat veteran.
Psychology college students are taught to criticise experiments with low ecological validity, (where the experimental situation is very different from the real situation) such as this one. People watching a film know that they are under no personal threat, in fact many watch violent and horror films for the ‘pleasure’ of feeling some autonomic arousal while knowing they are safe: hardly a situation likely to generate PTSD.That does not mean updating does not work, just that this experiment has little to say about it that is directly relevant yet, although it may give some clues as to the processes involved.
Casualty staff and other emergency workers already use updating techniques instinctively by providing reassuring messages and physical comfort to people as soon as possible after the event, knowing that this will help reduce the psychological impact and aid recovery. The story one can tell oneself later will be very different if another human being is obviously concerned and comforting you, also in talking about what has happened they may be preventing some of the disruption that trauma causes to autobiographical memory.
Flashbacks are hard to control.I’ve recently had a new flashback when I was 3 yrs old. I’m 60 yrs old why has it taken so long to surface? My first one was at 33 totally different then my original. Where are these memories stored? I had brainspotting,regression therapy, Chakra healing.conventional therapy and excercise to combat my PTSD, all the other healthy coping skills.
I used hypnotherapy a couple of weeks after a firework incident and it worked really well to get my nervous system back into kilter.
I believe that many of these other treatments work well however many of these practitioners lack the trauma background to help to heal adults with childhood trauma.
I feel that a practitioner with a psychological background and any one of these other methods (hypnotherapy, EDMR, somatic healing, etc.) can work wonders in comparison with any practitioner with only one therapeutic approach.
I do however think that we get too stuck in the “elephants” head and that the rest of the “elephant in the room” needs attention. That the physical body needs practical help especially if the subject is frozen and practical help with nutrition. Many adult survivors need to be taught one to one how to take care of themselves not just leaflets and shoulds in relation to care or making a meal.
When intervening with bank staff right after a robbery it helps to frame the experience as a ‘success’ – in that they performed as trained and kept the customers and staff safe. (There’s a tendency for some to feel they’ve failed it the robber made off with bank cash.) Also, they can be encouraged to conclude that if ever this happens again they’ll know how to react.
Did this experiment work with the consolidation window as portrayed, or desensitized people to violence prior to exposure. When does the consolidation window begin?
I agree with the implications in your question. We may NOT want to desensitize people such as physicians, firefighters and emergency first responders, nor soldiers– in advance. The ability to respond emotionally needs to be preserved.
I wd like info
I agree with Dr Viktor Frankl. PTSD can be avoided if the victim can give personal meaning to their experience. They will therefore be able to set a realistic goal for themselvesin the future. This goal must seem realistic for them otherwise it’ll just wishful thinking.
Dawson Church has combined Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) with EMDR by moving your eyes whilst tapping. This is quite an effective method.
I also use some Neurofeedback, Neurolinguistics Programming (NLP) to reframe negative thoughts and
couple this/these with Clinical Hypnotherapy for relaxation and re-planting a more acceptable memory.
I realise there are many, many modalities used in treatment of PTSD but these are some of the ones I find effective.
Young children even benefit from EMDR/EFT and Clinical Hypnotherapy.
There now are a wide variety of tools for working with PTSD/TBI/ as well other issues. They all are effective ,however, the secret seems to be in finding s combination of treatments that the client responds to best. I am not a clinical psychologist but I do have education and credentials that allow me to work with these individuals. I use a combination of treatments and methods and worked very well for me after a severe auto accident in 1990. They are: Iyengar yoga, Buddhist meditation (mindfulness/insight meditation), cranial sacral therapy, and the teachings of Carl Jung. In combination, these modalities address the whole person, if you will, and many can be done by the individual in a home practice thus they empower the client in a way that those requiring a therapist/clinician do not. That is not to say that intervention by a professional therapist is not needed!
I too have found Craniosacral therapy very effective! I too have experienced severe car accidents and found craniosacral therapy very effective, but unfortunately body therapies don;t get enough mention or credit
Agreed! Our bodies hold our past and also tell us a lot about the present. I teach an emotional form of the Alexander Technique combined with several other body/mind modalities to help my clients connect to their physical/mental/emotion being and to listen and respond to their every changing fluid selves.
RTEP or recent traumatic episode protocol is a specific EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) protocol used to process traumatic material while the information is fragmented prior to consolidation. It is effective to prevent acute stress reaction from turning into PTSD. You can see more on the RTEP and EMDR on EMDRhap.org or AZTRN.org for more information.
There is a technique invented by Tom Stone of GLT he refers to as learn to Feel to the CORE of the Energy of any given traumatic emotion, which makes huge Sense. The Sense of this technique is to learn to feel into the Energy at the very Core of any given fear resisted Emotion, in such a way as to bypass the traumatic Story associated with the Energy of a given fear based Emotions. This allows theTraumatized Person to get so comfortable with more Sympathetic Nervous System generated Energy, that the Energy at the Core of the Emotion can Release and shift into a much more Relaxed Now Parasympathetic State. Sometimes very quickly, sometimes over a number os sessions. The good news is that once a person gets this technique, it becomes much easier to just Be Present with any strong Sympathetic Side Emotional Charge as opposed to Being compulsively Reactively Driver by any such Charge. Tom has already worked with major PTSD Vet cases with truly amazing Results. There used to be a Video of him working with a Vet posted You tube.
I believe the more a person acknowledges the past
event as overcome while resorting to the present moment as evidence of survival and growth, enhances the present while making the past as simply history. This survival of the past and growth achievement in the present moment replaces the old with the new memory thus overcoming PTSD.
I use some of Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing techniques and the use tap pin (EFT) and EMDR to relieve symptoms of PTSD. Combining these methods seems to work best for me.
Ive suffered Ptsd for years. Many traumas and alot continue. I’m not sure what works. Medication has not helped. Ive looked for support and treatment. No luck. But I do know that with the right understanding and love. Being treated good helps control the anger. At times.
EMDR
When I see patients in the acute stress phase (within three months of experiencing a trauma) I teach them self-directed grounding and relaxation techniques; self-safe hypnosis, Energy Tapping, PMR and controlled breathing. We also practice exercises to prevent over-thinking/analyzing the event, and creative awareness/mindfulness art expression for self-soothing. Once the patient is congruent with those techniques we focus on increasing emotional, mental and physical health strength to empower and address any “loss of control” feelings. At times I also refer patients to an aromatic specialist for the topical administration of essential oils to balance the nervous system and remove stored muscle tension.
Have found EFT & Matrix Re-imprinting using EFT, the most effective tools for PTSD.
Mindfulness/meditation also compliments the effectiveness.
Consistency of practice, persistence, patience, & perseverance are essential.
A metaphysical perspective helps greatly.
Tools & practices to calm the Emotions & Quieten the Mind; to ‘step back’ from this ‘waking Dream’.
I deal with extreme PTSD on a daily basis. I teach doctors, psychologists etc. how to step people through to the other side of their trauma – quickly, effectively and very safely.
This web-page gives an overview:
judithrichards.com.au/richards-process-training-course/
And thanks to everyone for posting here. Love the insight and care shown.
This is exciting information, and I look forward to that information being expanded as further discovery takes place. This holds a lot of hope for some incredibly empowering possibilities for people experiencing trauma.
I had a life threatening bike accident where I have no memory for 7 days. I have had no PTSD and am so curious as to why. I am wondering what transpired during that crucial 6 hr window as I was helicopters off the mountain and treated in the ER that might have offered the relational safety piece. If so, then all First Responders should be trained to meet their patients with both emotional care and medical care!
After 48 years as a Social Worker and 6 years as EMDR practitioner I can say for sure EMDR itherapy is the best to process trauma.
Definately interested in the consolidation window and resetting the nervous system! Thanks.
The most effective way I’ve experienced to work with traumatic memories and fear is Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing. In cases when you are in the midst of a panic attack, OR you are in an everyday conversation…you are realizing that this over-charged energy is THERE, NOW, IN THE BODY. I’ve now experienced it percolate sort of *anytime* in sessions. This blew me away about SE.
Examples: All of a sudden I’m in a grief state in session after talking about the butterflies on the wall. And we check in to the somatic state and some strange unique anomaly is happening there. I’ll make one up for an example– I’ve become aware of a pounding head ache, or my hands are shaking…This process is mindfulness infused with TLC.
In the second example, I’m seated on a balancing cushion, slightly destabilized and my therapist says she will lightly touch me, and touches me (and I really like and trust this woman) but I am taken off guard anyway and my heart muscle goes into complete disregulation. It makes me jump inside. Then as I go internal and *feel*, my face takes off in this bizarre dance of unwinding with my lips sneering and flapping and twitching (unconscious movement). And Goddess, I feel better afterward.
And now, in a third example…DURING a panic attack, this same therapist guides me through tracking my feelings in response to present day emotional challenges. We’re on the phone. At the end of this session my left side piriformis muscle in my glute, all the way to the ball of my foot has unwound, and I feel seriously relieved and grateful. Into the instability, the back into the room. Into the fear and back into the room. I get to watch the feeling disappear as I narrate what is happening in present time.
This process is greatly enriched by a NON-JUDGMENTAL rapport. What I say is not being scrutinized for veracity, but rather heard with concern for what I feel, that those feelings are most important- not the story around them. I’m important! (I experience this as Attachment, Bonding, Concern, Friendliness, Witnessing me). Sometimes I think this process comes close to a healthy mother’s *unconditional* LOVE.
Seems as if given the time lapse between most trauma events and treatment opportunities working with updating the consolidation window might be the most immediately useful for working with secondary trauma in clinicians and other caregivers.
I also use EFT and EMDR for clients that have experienced trauma. I find both techniques to be extremely beneficial!
I am familiar and using EMDR. What is EFT?
EFT is Emotional Freedom Technique also known as “tapping”. I took a weekend course to learn about the technique but there are hundreds of videos, on Youtube, in many languages where you can learn more about this amazing technique.
I do not know what the technique “updating” is and would like to. I work with trauma almost every day in a primary care clinic and primarily use energy tapping, which is quite successful, although I offer three options to patients, one is referral to EMDR, the other is a visualization technique that also works well but is more time consuming and risks abreaction. With tapping, patients generally come to a spontaneous reinterpretation of the trauma on their own within a very short time (definitely less than 5 mins) of reducing the distress to 0/10. Please give me a reference for this technique. And thanks all who have written because I have been supported and educated by hearing your thoughts.
Peter Levine addresses this “consolidation period” very simply and clearly in his book ‘Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma.
And in ‘In and Unspoken Voice’ he wrote about the “power of kindness” which he experienced during a personal experience, that allowed his body/mind to do what it ‘knows’ how to do…but he required the safety that the kindness opened up for him. It sounds as if any potential for trauma specific to his accident was already cleared by the time he reached active medical intervention, because someone offered him kindness and safety in those first few moments after it occurred.
In the forward of Levine’s book ‘In an Unspoken Voice’ Gabor Mate says…”Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”
I wonder if the researchers who did this experiment have read Peter Levine’s work? What is needed is an understanding that it is not a mental/cognitive/thinking process that allows trauma to be healed…healing is what comes as a result of being in the presence of kind, non-intrusive, genuinely caring people, or pets, or self, at a time of vulnerability after a difficult time, or much later, when the ‘trauma’ is being recalled or re-experienced.
After being on fire and having that primal moment of knowing if something did not happen I would be dead….and then between my actions and that of another, I in fact was saved….what I most needed was words of comfort, acknowledgment of how brave the two of us had been to put out the fire and save me. Kindness such as what G Moncrieff suggests and Gabor Mate and Peter Levine. I had a lot of care for my wounds and I had a lot of concern. I can say now that I needed to have someone be able to witness and hear how terrified I was and also how brave I was. Unfortunately, in the telling of the trauma I sensed I was frightening others so much that I stopped telling the tale and some of the comments I received were not always helpful. Being told I was ‘lucky’, never fit. I never felt lucky about being put in that situation at all. I understand that it would take training in order to know that all a person really wants to know, over and over again, is that they are ok, that it is going to be ok, that they did nothing wrong and that they were and are brave.
I have had successes for my own recovery with somatic experiencing, trauma sensitive yoga and meditation. It is a much longer road to recovery if we are left to “hold inside” all of the feelings of an event such as this. Now I know first hand what that can look like to doubt our own strengths when shaken so deeply and not properly witnessed in the aftermath. As a burn survivor, there is such an emphasis, and quite necessary I might add, on the physical aspects of recovery.
Thank you for this forum.
My experience with childhood trauma personally and as a facilitator centers around changing the beliefs about self formed in the aftermath of the event. Transforming them in the same way and context they were formed, how the brain created them.
When we receive what we have always needed in the aftermath of a traumatic event, even decades later…when what should have happened, finally does…we emerge with a healthier interpretation of the event and ourselves, releasing the future with the past. We can purposely create these moments and change the beliefs that distort self concept and separate us from our true belonging and each other.
“Our brains are designed to adapt thru experience to the environment they are in, not rise above it.”
This is a way to rise above any history.
I apologize, I do not remember the author of above quote.
Nothing new here. However the determination of healthy is questionable. When I went through Hospice training in 1986, we were ordinary community members who stepped up perhaps out of curiosity or need to help people dying. We viewed a number of videos of terminally ill patients. The teacher would introduce each one with a brief comment like “this is a 1 hankie” or this is a 4 hankie”. I noticed that the one hankie might not be so upsetting, but the 4 hankie had everybody in tears. It finally dawned that I was able to accept we were viewing people in distress because they were dying and it wasn’t about me. I was able to help families with a degree of equanimity.
By the way I was heartbroken when Bambies mother died in Disney’s version of the fire.
I use Eye Movement Desensitation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy within the first 90 days after trauma when it is thought the memories are still consolidating. EMDR has a protocol for recent traumatic events to use during this time.
The Click to Tweet Comment in this post assume that Trauma is stored in the brain. It’s not. We know that already. It’s stored in the body. We have to get away from this mindset that that the brain is the command center or the storage device for the body’s information. This information is processed and stored all over the body, of which the brain plays a part. Psychology is so brain centric…like all your problems are ‘up in your head’. The brain is merely the handmaiden of the body…
And what about the mind? As different from the brain.
EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
by Kay Zeaman
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is all about uncontrolled bouts of high anxiety, and OCD is an anxiety disorder. Getting relief from PTSD can significantly lower your anxiety level and directly or indirectly lessen OCD symptoms. I learned this from personal experience.
What exactly is EMDR and how does it work? EMDR therapy affects past experience, present experience, and future potential challenges, resulting in decreased symptoms and elimination of distress from disturbing memories, brings improved view of self, and relief from bodily disturbance.
In my case, I worked with Dr. Janice DeLange in Grand Rapids. She is an EMDR therapist and trauma treatment specialist. Although there are different methods of doing EMDR therapy, Dr. DeLange used the method of moving her hand across my field of vision back and forth like the motion of a windshield wiper. My eyes followed the movement of her hand while I thought about the traumatic event in my life (the sudden death of my father was one example).
After several repetitions of this movement I began to relive the traumatic event in very
precise detail, experiencing physical and emotional feelings that were present at the time of the initial trauma.
My first OCD rituals, started at the age of 11, three days after my father died suddenly in a car accident. It was during his funeral service, that I discovered that by counting the sides of the baptismal font in the front of the church over and over and over I could distract myself from the realization my father would never be in my life again. This helped to lessen my anxiety about how life would be without a father I adored.
My counting led to more OCD rituals. I began to compulsively read highway signs, store signs, etc and to always end the reading of the signs with a word that was a noun…not a verb or preposition which seems to me to be active or changing. I wanted to control my life and my emotions, for fear of what catastrophic event might happen next to me. The world felt like an insecure place.
At the age of 21, more OCD rituals began. After a traumatic relationship-related event I began to compulsively wash my hands, take long showers, and be concerned if my clothes were clean, if my house was clean and safe for others to enter, and to dwell on other contamination fears.
I had “cell memory” in my body from a near fatal car accident. The mind/body connection is so very strong and every time my body experienced physical sensations years later that reminded me of the car accident it would trigger a panic attack. EMDR worked extremely well in breaking these mind/body panic attacks.
Although there is some controversy over how EMDR works, my therapist believes EMDR works by moving the trauma (memory) from the amygdala (fight-flight or worry circuit of the brain) to the hippocampus part of the brain where it can be processed and released. Brain integration takes place as new neural pathways are created and distress is relieved. I no longer get thoughts stuck in my brain, replaying them over and over and over again.
EMDR activates the 2 hemispheres of the brain, similar to REM sleep, which is characterized by rapid back and forth movement of the eyes. REM sleep enables emotional processing. EMDR enables emotional processing at an extremely fast speed.
Since EMDR therapy, I have about 20% of the amount of anxiety I experienced most of my lifetime, and it has made my OCD symptoms decrease and life much more pleasurable for me.
As Dr. Shapiro says, “EMDR does not merely take symptoms away it affects the past, present, and future.”
When people think of PTSD and EMDR, they usually think of treatment for war veterans. But EMDR is also used to treat victims of crime, automobile accidents, sexual assault, natural disasters, critical parents, complicated grief, phobias, pain disorders, eating disorders, panic attacks, emotional and physical abuse, addictions, body dysmorphic disorders, performance anxiety, and dissociative disorders.
To learn more about EMDR, I recommend the book, Getting Past Your Past, by psychologist, Francine Shapiro, PhD. Dr. Shapiro discovered EMDR in 1987, and in 1989 she reported success using EMDR to treat trauma in an issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
Also if you go to the EMDR Institute website, emdr.com (or call 831-761-1040), or the EMDR International Association website, emdria.org (or call 512-451-5200) you can search for a trained EMDR specialist in your community.
Two great books on this subject are “Verbal First Aid” and the “Worst is Over” by Judith Acosta.
I believe the latest therapy technique, Living Inquiries by Scott Kiloby, is the best treatment I know of to release past trauma/fear/anxiety/addictions. Thoughts in the form of words and pictures are first neutralized, then the associated feelings/emotions are felt inside the body in increments where they can now be processed. (This process is client driven so clients are not overwhelmed with the emotions too big to process and instead bite off small increments.) As the feelings are felt as sensations passing through, the thought field/emotions dissipate in kind. Seek youtube for more information of this technique.
Rapid resolution therapy is all about debugging meaning and shifting perspective. Powerful transformational hypnotherapy tool
We need police to understand the importance of their role in intervening during that consolidation window where domestic violence and child sex abuse are concerned. Unfortunately the role of adversarial litigation in family courts compounds the trauma — often causing years of terror and a lifetime of PTSD.
I have a keen interest in processing traumatic memories. Many situations are processed through past memories, and then added to them, in my opinion. This additive effect makes a situation much bigger than it is, but the brain doesn’t know that!
Current techniques now consist of de-sensitizing the emotions of the memory, during many periods of memory recall and consolidation. Hopefully, new techniques will be available.
I would gently suggest that you get hold of Peter Levine’s book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. If you only read the first chapter it will give you a good grounding for future work with people (or yourself), but there is so much more if you do read the whole book of course! Also check out well used processes like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) by Francine Shapiro. It does require full training, supervision and certification to do, but if you really want to help people then it is worth investing the time and energy in learning this.
It is important to realize if you are wanting to help others to process their traumatic memories, that it is not necessary or useful to have the person go back into them just to tell you or others about them…that is just adding to the trauma (by thinking about it, telling the story again possibly with new bits added)….It is also important to know that trauma is a feelings that are you are stuck … so it is the feelings that need to be dealt with, not the story about the feelings.
With EMDR it is the stuck feelings in the person that get worked on, not the current story. Because you are right, everything is processed through the ‘stories that we tell ourselves’ about ‘what happened’ and new things get added over the years and the re-telling.
When engaging in the process of EMDR, what happens is that the stuck feelings/fears/beliefs/anger/reactions that we THOUGHT were attached to something that happened to us in the past get processed in a safe manner and dissipate so they no longer interfere with our day to day life. After a session of EMDR you may find that those old thoughts/feelings simply never even enter your mind/body …as they are no longer necessary. And it is important to realize that it is possible to re-traumatize if the story continues to be told (by the client or the therapist!). So, once the feelings have been unstuck, stop telling the story!
Trauma is possibly a very powerful tool for the body/brain to signal to the world and itself that something is stuck that needs to be unstuck…and then move on with living. (As the gazelle does in Peter Levine’s book)
Good luck
The location of that study is here and is freely available to all. Ruth, I totally agree with you that the circumstances of the participants may be too different from what people who are truly in danger of developing PTSD to say that the latter group will benefit from this treatment. And they may need other kinds of therapy in addition to this updating treatment.
What does it mean, the introduction “devalued” the upcoming distress exposure?
Devaluating distressing material before viewing distressing event? Interesting experiment, however, it was done many times before. For example, training SS and SA groups during the Nazi’s time in Germany involved desensitization. War criminals are known for not having PTSD despite witnessing and contributing to the most horrifying events. Does the development of PTSD assume presence of empathy?
With Integral Eye Movement Therapy (IEMT) we are seeing great results with PTSD sufferers and some of our practitioners are now working closely with Vets here in the UK.
As a relatively new kid on the block and as with all new interventions introduced, it is very difficult to get studies up and running but we are actively looking to work with researchers in this field.
The premise is that the eye movements stimulate the hippocampus thus reducing the memories and reducing the emotions attached to the memory.
We do have a particular protocol within IEMT which specifically addresses PTSD and what we look for we call the ‘lynch-pin’ – the one thing in the traumatic memory around which everything else revolves. When we identify this then the intervention can begin.
Can you recommend any NYC practitioners?
Hi Sherry
Sorry I didn’t get a notification of a reply so have only just found your question. I’ll pass your enquiry on the Andrew Austin (Original IEMT Developer) – I know he has taught in the States so better that he recommend rather than me pluck a name out of the air. I’ll get back to you soon as.
Best Regards
Rob
Thanks Rob, I’m looking him up, thanks to your info
What was the introduction in the updating group?