and have survived the unspeakable
horrors of war you come home and try to
compartmentalize the anxiety the
depression the panic attacks the
flashbacks and the nightmares by staying
busy with work but over time things
start to unravel and your family insists
on you getting help you resist at first
but eventually find yourself in a
therapist’s office that interaction
looks a little something like this
though tell me about war I was in
Vietnam people were dying well now you
see that’s a good start but with this
therapy we’re going to need for you to
give more detail and more detail in even
more detail until finally I was on
patrol at daybreak in the jungles of
Vietnam sweat was dripping from my body
I could smell napalm in the air there
were shots in the distance sounds of
agony and torture I looked up and saw a
comrade hanging from a tree his flesh
dangling from his bones my heart was
racing I felt sick to my stomach I
thought it was going to die
on it goes and when your therapist feels
you’ve reached the appropriate level of
detail he has you repeat the story again
and again and if that’s not a pleasant
enough experience for you you’re in luck
because your therapist has recorded this
session and your homework is to listen
to it multiple times throughout the week
in addition you’re required to go into
environments and situations that will
trigger these memories and figure out
how to handle the symptoms on your own
I was in graduate school and this was my
first time experiencing a therapy called
prolonged exposure as a therapist who
helps people heal from their traumatic
events I’m used to moving towards people
in their psychological emotional
physical and spiritual pain like a
firefighter running into a burning
building my superpower is to hold space
for people as they make their way
through their darkest hours to find hope
growth and healing but as I observed
this session I couldn’t help but think
how horribly retraumatization SMU’s be
for this person we were supposed to be
helping and everything in me cry just
stop there are clients and clinicians
alike who would say that prolonged
exposure is helpful but it’s not a good
fit for me and this experience made me
determined to find a more compassionate
more respectful more effective way of
helping people heal from their trauma
and that’s when I found accelerated
resolution therapy or AR T now you can
read about accelerated resolution
therapy online you’ll find that it was
developed in 2008 by Laney rosensweig
you can read about the research
conducted at the University of South
Florida led by dr. Kevin Kip much of
which I’ve had the honor to assist with
you’ll find that it’s evidence-based
showing efficacy in three to five
sessions but what you can’t read about
as easily is a client’s experience with
the therapy today I’d like to share with
you my own benefit from AR T as well as
relief my clients have been able to
experience because when you are loved
one are faced with an earth-shattering
event the statistics are important to
know but the question you’ll really want
answered is will this be helpful in our
situation
I was super excited my first day of
accelerated resolution therapy training
until I realized that there was an
experiential component to the training
then I was a little nervous about the
process as many of my clients are but I
focused that session on one of my most
intense distressing adverse childhood
experiences those things that happen
early in life that leave a mark on you
into adulthood the brain has the
remarkable ability to link a current day
situation with anything that looks like
sounds like smells like tastes like or
feels like a previous threatening
situation the brain feels unsafe so it
reminds you of that prior event in fact
a component of trauma is the
re-experiencing of those memories when
we think of them the same intense
emotions rise and the body responds in
similar ways increased heart rate muscle
tension the tastes of blood in the mouth
perhaps the feeling that you’re going to
vomit it’s this rien cing that makes it
difficult for most people to be able to
talk about their traumatic experiences
as you can imagine and so one of the
benefits of using a RT to resolve trauma
is that you don’t have to talk about the
event this fact came in really handy for
me during my session as we were getting
started and before I was able to give
any detail of what we would be focusing
on tears sprang to my eyes is all of the
grief hurt and fear surrounding that
memory and that had built for decades
came pouring out I was in full-fledged
ugly cry for majority of that session
and couldn’t have talked even if I had
wanted to my colleague who was acting as
my therapist during that session sat in
front of me and moved her hand back and
forth in front of my eyes I know it’s
really weird isn’t it but it works we
alternated between focusing on that
memory and calming sensations and
emotions that came up for me as
went along using these same eye
movements by doing this I was able to
process that experience more deeply gain
greater insight and oddly enough at the
end of that session I was exhausted but
I found peace now I know it might seem
odd that I’m standing in front of you
talking about this experience with a
smile in my face and I get that but this
smile is from new emotions of relief
strength and intense gratitude for that
experience
you see wounded healers hold the
fiercest hope for their clients and my
own healing fuels the hope that I carry
into each heart-wrenching session one of
these clients came in after being
attacked by large animal now she asked
that I not tell you what type of animal
it was as she doesn’t want you to be
upset with the species but suffice it to
say it was a circus type as I was
gathering history from her she shook
just thinking about the attack we spent
one session focused on the attack much
of which she was doubled over during
tears streaming from her face as she had
been during the actual event we spent
the next two sessions on the medical
trauma that she experienced afterwards
she had been hospitalized for weeks had
multiple surgeries was a rehab for
months and has extensive scarring but at
the end of those sessions she deemed a
RT to be fantastic noting that everyone
should do it
in fact she recently sent me a picture
of herself at a museum exhibits standing
in front of a model of one of those
large animals in that picture
she stood defiantly giving that animal
of one finger salute I’ll let you guess
which finger she used
a RT is helpful not only for combat
trauma in animal attacks but also car
accidents sexual assaults among various
other traumas amazingly I have observed
the most impactful responses of
post-traumatic growth to be those
survivors of sexual assaults these are
some of the most intense sessions but
the intensity lasting for about an hour
and we’re calming those sensations as we
go along remarkably at the end of the
session clients Express peace in a
regain strength and hope for their
future these are some of the bravest men
and women I have ever met and I am
honored to hold sacred space with them
in an unsettling world of me too I stand
here to say there is healing for you
another client became fearful as she
expressed her inability since her
traumatic brain injury to be able to use
microwave we used a RT to allow her to
visualize the steps in the process as we
call sensations and feelings of
frustration and anxiety that came up for
her and her inability to do what had
once been such a basic task we know
through neuroscience that just thinking
about a behavior creates neural pathways
to that behavior I’d love to see
research on how adding eye movements to
the process can help facilitate the
brain’s healing and speaking of research
as we get a better understanding of the
power of eye movements in the brain the
research expands to helping people with
chronic pain and complex grief their
head-to-head comparisons between AR T
and other therapy modalities an ongoing
consideration for the use of AR T for
performance enhancements to help
surgeons snipers Olympic athletes and
yes TEDx speakers
able to do their job more effectively
but those are stories for another day
the opportunities for hope growth and
healing that come from accelerated
resolution therapy are definitely ideas
imagine knowing exactly where to turn to
for help in healing for yours or loved
ones traumatic events imagine not having
to replay your sexual assault over and
over again
imagine healing from your trauma so that
you can improve your relationships and
other parts of your life that have been
impacted by your traumatic events and
that Vietnam veteran imagine him healing
from the memories that he’s carried for
more than many of us have been alive
imagine him finally able to unpack his
rucksack of pain finally sleep through
the night come off of some of his
psychiatric medications all in three to
five sessions not months no
retraumatization of prolonged exposure
no homework now imagine offering that
same healing to other veterans before
their combat experiences take a toll on
decades of their lives I believe that
this and more is possible through the
power of eye movements in the brain
thank you very much
[Applause] you