A clinician walks a client through Manfield's Flash Technique for trauma processing. The client rates a childhood memory at 8-9 intensity, then visualizes Butterfly Beach while blinking three times each time the clinician says "flash," creating bilateral stimulation. By session's end, the memory fades and shifts from distress toward compassion.
Chapters
Thank you for volunteering. Do you have a particular memory that's like a 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, or 10, or anything?
3 years old. 3.
And, uh, on the 0 to 10 scale.
Oh, sorry. Uh-huh.
Anything that And 10 being like the worst, the worst. So 4, 5, 6, 7.
I mean, for me, I mean, for me it felt like an 8 or 9 at a young age. Yeah.
But how about right now? It's a memory. So, uh, 3, 2. Okay. You got anything that's a little stronger to work on?
I might, uh, and you don't have to say what it is, just— I mean, yeah, sure. Uh-huh.
Okay, uh, a specific one?
Uh-huh.
And do you have a number?
Yeah, sure. Like, it's probably like a, like a 6.
Okay, perfect. That's just about perfect. Okay, so do you want to try this? There's so many different ways to do it, but, um, great. And I, I've learned The actual butterfly is this. And, you know, just we did as kids and you do it more on, on right here. But I like the feeling of the hug part. So do whatever feels best to you on that. And what would you like to think about right now? What would you like? Because and something that you would share out loud, the positive, engaging focus, what would that be? And you're pretty visual.
Uh, you mean in general, or what do you mean I'm pretty visual?
Um, in your mind's eye, you can see things. So if you're thinking of the beach, so what would you like to kind of help us visualize? What would you be enjoying?
Positive, uh, being, um, at the literally Butterfly Beach, which is down the street. I take my small dog.
It's called Butterfly Beach. It's very well known and it's Butterfly Beach and, and blink 3 times when I say flash. So you go blink, blink, blink. Okay.
Okay. It's Butterfly Beach and, uh, I take my dog there frequently. Sun, sunsets, sunrises. He runs freely. Plays in the snow.
What can you see right now? What can you, as if, um, we're blind and we're all there together, what are we seeing with you?
So right now you see a little bit of a high tide and my small dog— Flash.
Blink, blink, blink when I say flash. Great. Keep going. I interrupt you, but keep going.
My small dog who I rescued from Korea, he's yearning to run free on the beach. He's—
Flash. Blink, blink, blink.
He's enjoying the run and he feels free and safe and excited and I feel peace at the beach and I see the sun, I feel the sun on my body, the water coming toward me. I feel connected to my higher power. And I thought—
bare feet, bare feet, or—
oh, definitely bare feet.
Feel the sand. Even I can—
sand in my feet. Yeah, for sure. Throwing the ball.
Blink, blink, blink. Pause. Now you were using your working memory, is what I would say. That's present moment. Bring back the target just for a moment. Now forget about it and come back to this wonderful butterfly beach. Tell us anything more about it. You see?
Yeah, so people are happy that are walking by with their dogs. Everyone is enjoying— everyone's enjoying the stroll and the sound of the waves crashing at our feet. My feet are getting wet because I grabbed the ball, the ball rolled into the water, so I had to go down. It's chilly, it's chilly. I usually have—
not as cold as up here, Santa Barbara. Good.
Okay, I have a proper jacket on.
Blink, blink, blink. Okay, pause. Bring back the target memory, and again, you don't have to say at all what it is, but visually, or, you know, the components of memory are visual, emotional, physical, sensory, sometimes cognitive. There may be a belief that goes with it, sometimes auditory. And you brought in like a temperature feeling, or sometimes smell. How about for you? Anything different when you bring that memory back?
It becomes— it's less It's more faint, like the, the, the visually. Yeah. The specifics of it visually are more faint. I know earlier before we started the, this, I started feeling more compassion toward the other person that was involved in the trauma with me, or that where I was harmed and right. Uh, I had more compassion for that person, um, from an adult perspective.
Ah, you said even before you did the Flash?
Uh, well, we were doing the Flash earlier.
Oh, oh, earlier. Oh, oh, good.
Or you and I started doing the model— the modeling.
Yeah. Oh, great. Um, does it make sense to you that your today's brain would want to hold that terrible, difficult childhood event, would want to hold it this way now with the understanding of who you are now?
Yeah. And it's making me sad as I think about it. Yeah. It's coming up.
And, and sad is certainly okay. And we don't want to take away from that. There are things in life.
Sure. So it's healing sadness. It's like I've been holding it there and it's, yeah. Yeah. I've been holding it there and I, but certainly repressed it. I, it's been, I've been aware of it, so I've more suppressed it.
And it's sad for the kids involved.
Yes, that's right. Yes, yes, that's right.
You know, we're all so hard on ourselves when sometimes, um, someone will have some leftover shame from something, and then I say, but if, if a 10-year-old who went through the same thing came to you right now, you wouldn't be upset with them. You wouldn't feel they were bad. You would be so You'd be the right person. We're all such wounded healers. I'm so glad you had that experience. Right now, any particular thought that you would say right now, what, um, for yourself about the whole thing?
I don't know if I have a particular thought. It's more of a, a sense of like care, you know, like a sense— it's a feeling, a felt sense of— I don't know if the word is forgiveness, but I wasn't even harboring it because my logical brain could understand it with all the knowledge I have. But I think this, this is more of an embodied forgiveness.
