Therapy Modalities
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
The key concepts of Accelerated Resolution Therapy include memory reconsolidation and smooth-pursuit eye-movements. Together, these techniques help patients deal with issues like trauma, anxiety, depression, or sleep problems.
Memory Reconsolidation
When we remember an emotionally-based memory, one of the natural processes that occurs in our brains is the “unfixing” or malleability of the memory. Scientists refer to this natural phenomenon as “Memory Reconsolidation.” Science has shown that the memory remains “malleable” in a period called the Reconsolidation Window for about 6 hours after recalling it.
During this period, under the direction of the therapist, the client would imaginatively create new images that are peaceful or evoke pleasant feelings and replace the old troubling images that were previously paired with fear, anger, or other distressing emotions.
Research shows that the new images and the accompanying positive feelings are still attached to the memory at follow-up 4 months after the treatment has ended. There are other published studies that show that the replacement images and positive feelings are still present as long as one year later. These improvements suggest that the therapy can be long-lasting.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma.
When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health.
If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a cognitive-behavioral treatment developed by Marsha Linehan, Ph.D., in the 1980s to treat people with borderline personality disorder. Those diagnosed with BPD often experience extremely intense negative emotions that are difficult to manage. These intense and seemingly uncontrollable negative emotions are often experienced when the individual is interacting with others-friends, romantic partners, family members. People with borderline often experience a great deal of conflict in their relationships.
As its name suggests, DBT is influenced by the philosophical perspective of dialectics: balancing opposites. The therapist consistently works with the individual to find ways to hold two seemingly opposite perspectives at once, promoting balance and avoiding black and white–the all-or-nothing styles of thinking. In service of this balance, DBT promotes a both-and rather than an either-or outlook. The dialectic at the heart of DBT is acceptance and change.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy was invented by psychiatrist Aaron Beck in the 1960s. While performing psychoanalysis, Beck observed that patients tended to be subject to a negative internal dialogue monologuing, almost as if they were talking to themselves during analytical sessions, however, when prompted, they would only report a fraction of the details of this thinking.
Beck realized that the link between thoughts and feelings was crucial to personal development. Beck coined the term automatic thoughts and used it to describe the intensely emotive thoughts that bounce through the mind.
More importantly, Beck found that people weren’t always fully aware of these thoughts, but they could learn to identify and report them with the right cognitive training. If a patient felt disheartened in some way, he observed the thoughts were usually negative, unhelpful, and not based in reality. Beck theorized that identifying these harmful thoughts was paramount to the client’s understanding of their unique difficulties and working to address them. Thus, cognitive behavioral therapy was born.
