"Breaking Free from Addiction: Unlocking Hope with Accelerated Resolution Therapy"

You guys, we have a special special guest on with us today. We have Lainey Rosenzweig. Did I say it right? Perfect. I said it right. Who is the founder, like, the person who invented art, which is accelerated resolution therapy. Some of you may have seen, we had Dr. Jackson on, I don't think, about a month or so back, who talked about his personal and professional experience with accelerated resolution therapy. And from that video, I think somebody from Laney's team found us and said Lainey would come on here and talk to us about. So, as you can imagine, I was super thrilled. And this week, of all weeks, is the perfect week to have her because we're celebrating our 100,000th subscriber, which we're super excited about. Laney, tell us a little about yourself and how you, like, figured this. I. I call it a brain hack. How did you figure this brain hack out? Because it's, like, amazing, right?

So I took the EMDR training back in 2007. And by the way, I talk a bit slow because I had a stroke, but I still see people who come. I do consults, I do training. I still do it. It's just a bit slower, which may be better, who knows?

So I don't know what EMDR is because our audience may or may not know that.

So EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization, Processing. A reprocessing, I should say, is what Francine Shapiro developed it spin up for over 30 years, I think. So I took the training in 2007 because I wanted a tool for trauma. And what Francine Japaro did was make it free associative. So she took these eye movements that are bilateral stimulation, and she took them and used this way of doing it with free association. So you see something, you go to the next thing you go. So I love the eye movements because it looked like they move things to the positive, maybe like REM sleep, you know, when we're trying to figure things out.

Can I interrupt you just a bit? Because I'm tracking you, but what is this lateral movement? That sounds, like, complicated. So tell us a little about that's doing in the brain.

Well, it's right left stimulation of the brain. So you're having the emotional side. Talk to the other part. That's the intellectual side of the brain. And so when you do these eye movements, you have much better results than talk therapy, in my opinion, for trauma especially. Good.

So is it kind of like you're building a bridge between the two parts of the brain so that the. The trauma can get over that bridge and go where?

I think it makes people smarter because they get to use more of their brain.

I like that bonus. Okay.

No, it's subconscious, the conscious thought. So it's really good. So. So I loved it. But I didn't like the free association because I'm a person that just, you know, is a straight shooter. I get right to it. So I took them and put them right on the problem for a client. And the clients were saying they were done for trauma after one session. I'm like, you're kidding. So I learned not to say you're kidding to a client again. Actually, I'm feeling. It's so busy. My therapists are so busy because people want art. And they say, do you do that art thing? I want that. So my therapist got lots of referrals. Like, I get tremendous amount of referral. So you have less sessions and see more clients. Right. You know, get fixed and go away. Don't want to keep your life.

Right.

I don't need a friend. Why keep people in pain longer than you have to? It doesn't make any sense. So Francine is a researcher too. She's disease right now, but forever, I guess, as I say for now. So. But she made it in a way. I think she thought it should be based on research. I did it by intuition. So I took the eye movements. I put up an amount of them different than what you did, and that's all I took. And then I created a whole protocol and how to use it. So I went to supervision at emdr, and the EMDR supervisor said, I don't know what you're doing, but it's not emdr. So either do it our way or call it something else. And so I did, because I thought it really works. And I liked it so much. So I was like, thank you. So two years subsequent, that supervisor took my training. And I said, I'm the one you told to make it something else and that it wasn't emdr. And she said, I hope I was nice to you. I said, you were afraid. And she took the train. So that was reaffirming. And so it works very quickly for trauma. I can do trauma in an hour, but I leave up to two hours in case people want to talk or something? That's what I do.

Can you give us, like, a case study or a situation just so we can almost, like, imagine how this happens?

So, for example, I had a first responder from 911 come in, and he was very nervous. He said, I'm too Scared to do this. I said, why don't you let me just calm your brain with the eye movements and then decide if you want it. He said, okay. So I get to that point and he says, I'm ready. I'd like to try it. So we do the protocol. And he says to his wife in the waiting room, I think I'm done. This is great. I don't feel anything. So three weeks subsequent to that, he said, I'm ready to do Santi Hook. I was right there as a first responder. And when I started to do the procedure, he said, I'm not feeling it like I did. I'm okay. I think. I don't think I need it. So we had one session and the other ones kind of generalized for that, and that was it, you know. And I also did the poster worker. If people take.

Hold on one second, one second. You're giving us so much. I want to ask questions. Want to get to the festival record t. So this, this person you're just talking about came in. There was two traumas. There was. This person had been involved in the 911 as a. As a responder, a first responder. Right. But also had been involved with Sandy Hook crisis. Right. And so most people watching probably remember those, recognize those. And so was it like one happened first? Like the 911 was first and then the Sandy Hook. But once you dealt with the 9 11, it's like, it's like the house of cards. It's like you pull out the domino and it just went.

I love that because I use that example.

Okay.

Sometimes you don't know the origin. So I use the eye movement to find out what happened below. So somebody came in, she startled. Every time someone walks past, she gets startled. So it went back to when she was four years old with a jack in the buck. And once we did that scene, she no longer had the startling response from the 4 year old.

What if we can't remember? What if you don't know where it goes back to?

Right. So if you can't remember, we do it metaphorically. We have to take the sensation and put that into an image your brain gives you.

Okay.

That represents the problem for the brain. So it can be worked on with a metaphor and be very effective as well.

This is the reason this is so fascinating is because it's like. It's not like therapy. Like we think of therapy at all. And I'm a therapist and Lanny's a therapist, and so. But it's not. It's. It's it's almost like if you think of it like a computer, like you're changing the code.

Right.

It's like a hack it literally. Right. It's like if your computer got a virus and then you, you went to an expert and they said, let me put it in this antivirus code and it fixed it. Like it's not years of talking about it, it's like different than that.

So it's like going to the dentist, getting with the decay. Because we erase images, we. We know how to get the client to release an image so they can see it. And the image causes the triggers.

Right.

And there is something called the reconsolidation window. Every time you think of something, you bring it up in the brain, you have an opportunity to change it. So we never remember anything the way it actually happened. Your brain will change it.

Right.

That's why witnesses on a criminal case have to be careful, because the brain may have changed it every time they look at it.

Right, right. And it does change. It's sort of like the whisper secret game or whatever when you're a kid. And every time it passes through one person, it gets shifted just a little bit until it's like totally a different thing.

Well, I love your metaphors. I really like that you compare that to that game where you talk and it changes as it goes around. Because that's what happened. So that's the basis of why art works. We go beyond desensitization, as Francine did. I made up a word called positization.

Oh, I like it.

Positivity. Because they get to change whatever happened to whatever they wish happened in a sort of lucid dream state. Once you do that, the brain lets go of all that trauma. And I do something called wordplay. So someone had Lyme disease. So I said, for that piece where we change it, you didn't have Lyme disease. Someone gave you a Lyme drink. So in her mind, her husband gave her a limeade drink and all her pain went away at that moment when she changed it in the brain. It's hard to believe. So let me just say this. That's why I called my book Too Good to be True. So look that up. It's a story of how I developed it. Some art stories and some of my stories. And we, you know, we have a lot of research. We'll do that in the next book because we're at a lot of great places to do some. We have research. We're waiting for the result of a million dollar head to head with cpt. And the va, but it's taken five years instead of three. She said, cause of COVID Tell us.

A little bit more about the research so that. So that the people watching know you just didn't just make this whole thing up and just saying it works, you know?

The first research was done at the University of South Florida, and they found that with an average of 3.5 sessions, they could eliminate all the PTSD for the developers. And, for example, there was somebody at the time of this study who saw a man get out of a car and he could hardly walk. A week later, same man is walking very sprightly and very well. And so this person followed him and said, what happened? He said, I'm in the study at usf. And they helped me so much, even with the walking, Right? And so this person is at Yale University, and he called me up to see if we could train some of his people. And so perhaps one day they're going to do studies. They talk about it, so we'll have to see. But I trained several of their people. I'm close to Yale. Bravo sends a stroke. But Yale's just, you know, an hour away from me in New Haven. So I went there and trained, and they loved it.

You know, now I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little bit, because when you say I. I've already come really far, Laney. And I'm like, wow, you could get rid of, like, trauma in, like, a session or three, maybe. But, I mean, that's amazing. But now you're saying this guy walked different. Help me understand the bridge between the trauma and the walking, because that might be a little. Okay, understand.

So I did none years ago. Couldn't walk without a cane or a walker. And she walked very slowly into my room. Now, when we did, and she was on a TV spot with me so I could talk about it. And so she had a part of the scene with the abuse where she couldn't run. So I used the eye movements to lighten up your sensations. It's a lot of work with sensations. And I said, you're going to put a helium balloon under you. Let's see what that does. Because it's like a dream. Anything's possible. So legs got very light during this session. At the end, she walked to the door and said, I don't think I need my walker. I can walk. And she gave it to the person who brought her. I have the TVs, but I have her talking about it, too. And so they were amazed because she went up and down stairs and just making the connection to get rid of the trigger, which was the abuse.

Where can they see that at? Can they, like, can they see that online somewhere?

It was on the spot that I think I have recorded somewhere with the old video. I have. But if they take the training, if they want to see it and they asked me, I'm happy to show too. But I know it's hard to believe. And when I first developed it, I couldn't believe people were getting better so much quickly from whatever, like OCD. I had someone say one session got rid of his 10 OCD. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't. Then I said, I have to make a training business because people, they have to have the relief. And that's when we made the. The business that we have for training.

Well, I think that, you know, even when you talk about like the walking for the two examples you said in there and their pain got every. I can kind of track that because a lot of people don't understand that, especially when it comes to chronic pain. Maybe not acute pain, but chronic pain. It's a neuropathway issue. And chronic pain can get stuck in your brain the same way a trauma memory. And it just keeps going. Most chronic pain is related to psychological stuff that doesn't. When I say that, I'm always scared to that because that doesn't mean I'm. I'm saying you're making up the pain. I'm saying the pain is stuck. Like a trauma memory gets stuck and it keeps replaying and causing pain. And you can shift that. Yeah.

Well, when you take an aspirin or a pain reliever, it makes changes in the brain. Art makes changes in the brain to block things and pain and so forth. You still know where it is, but the pain could go. We did a study on chronic pain. I was involved, and they got some relief. They were happy for the first time. Some. Some of them. So it's a brain thing. So if you can block the pain with doing it in the brain, with the eye movements, then it'll just like taking a pill.

So it's almost like anything that's sort of like a. A stuck thing that keeps happening, whether it's a trauma memory, an obsessive compulsive thought, an addiction, which we're coming to that because y' all know that's. That's our area or. Or even like chronic pain. It's like this. Something is just stuck on this recycle loop and will my past just keeps even probably getting stronger and stronger. This is anything in that realm. This is what the art. Accelerated resolution Therapy. That's what. It works on that channel in the brain.

Backs it off.

Right.

Okay. Right.

Tell it. Tell it. I interrupted you before, and I shouldn't have, but can you tell us the story about the. The postal worker person?

Oh, yeah. She read about me locally, and she was my poster worker, but I didn't know. And she was so afraid to deliver mail. She developed agoraphobia, meaning she couldn't leave and couldn't work. Was so unhappy, and she came to me. She had tried exposure therapy for a year and a half, walking around with dogs, and it didn't really do it. So I did the procedure. I have it on video. It's the first thing trainees see on how to do it. She was amazed. At the end of the session, she tried to pretend. Well, she pretended to deliver mail, and no issue. Wanted to go back to work, but they didn't believe she was better, so made her wait, and they went around with her. But has been delivering mail since, I think, 2010 or something, because we see her at the post office subways, and thank you. And so she was amazed. And to tell you a story, she wanted to see her video back. So she came and watched it, and she said, who is that woman? She can't run. Oh, I'm so sad for her. Like, she was detached.

It was a different person.

Like, it was someone else. She was so sad that she couldn't run because she was a runner, and now she runs. And so I have that video of.

Her watching her video that is so meta. I think I went to training locally just in the past six months or so. And that's when I learned what this was. I didn't even know what I signed up for. I just signed up because I had to get my CES before into August. It was close to me. I said, I'm going, whatever it is. And it was about this. And it said art. I thought it was just gonna be, like, coloring or something. And I was like, what? And they showed part of that video that you're talking about with the postal lady. And when you see that, it's amazing. And I think you can see at least clips of that on YouTube. If you look up Lainey's name, you'll see her TED talk. She did a TED Talk. And. And then that postal part will come up, too. And it's this postal lady who had got bit by a dog, and it was so severe, she had trauma, and she couldn't work, she couldn't leave her house. And she goes to see Laney and it's just like.

Just back to normal. She had three operations.

Wow. Because she had been so injured. I mean, it was bad.

Almost died.

Yeah. Wow.

So we show her in her mind the. You don't have to tell detail. She saw it in her mind. And I move the sensations the way I do. And by then she was her old self, like happy and not crying. And if somebody comes in to see me and they're crying by then, I say, try to cry about it. And they can't because it's moved.

Wow.

That's a good test.

It's just like. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Kids think it's like magic. They call it a Jedi mind truck.

It is. Tell us a little bit about. Does it have uses when it comes to addiction? Now obviously a lot of people have addiction, have trauma, and that's a mega, major obvious use. But are there uses for it when it comes to that compulsive behavior?

Yeah. So we do have. I wrote lots of scripts on how to do things. I might start out with someone with substance and do a scene of the first time they ever use and then tell the brain they never used and to talk to their earlier self about why it's a good idea not to use and change that scene.

Make a different decision. Okay.

Different decision back then. And then, of course, we work on the sensations of cravings and all that, but I like to see them twice the first week and second to get them through the craving. Because if your problem solve, sometimes your endorphins go up, you feel extra too good, then they come back to normal. But normal for someone with an addiction may be the feeling they think they have to use. Right. So if I can catch it in the three day period and see them twice the first week, maybe the second, you hit the cravings so they don't set in that same way. Okay.

So when it comes to someone who has addiction and maybe even someone who has addiction has trauma, there may be a few sessions because you may need to. You may need to address the cravings.

Right.

You need to address the. Where the addiction started. The word came a problem. And then you may need to go back and address the trauma. So.

We also do a typical day. They go through with their day seeing themselves use. And then we change it. It's. It's hard to explain unless you've had it. Because then, I mean, therapists come into training, they go, what is this? You know, and they're like this can't be. And then they do the practicum where they get rid of their own problem and they're just wide eyed and amazed and they're like, what have I been doing all these years for trauma? And I say, everything you've done is helpful and nothing's a waste, it's all there. It's fine, you know that you come in with all that knowledge and what you've done. But this puts it to good use of the word trauma. They should do it very quickly. For example, ongoing things may take 3, 4, 5, because they have that secondary gain, like even OCD. If someone does not do their OCD ritual, they get anxiety. The brain thinks that the ritual lowers the anxiety, but it's not true because it doesn't stay down. They have to keep doing it. So it doesn't really work. And so we have different ways of working with that, different scripts. I've done like that, but it's stubborn, it wants to be there because when they get nervous, that's. But I sort of change it up and put different things in. Instead of doing that, you could do this. What else could you do? You ask the brain, what could you do? Because we're just guides. The client does all the work, which is a shift. So many people who train call it a paradigm shift because they're used to having to coax somebody through and talk them through and give their ideas. Here you don't do that and they do all the work. So that I had a client recently, very nervous at the beginning, and usually I just process that through or use it to find out what the origin is. Right. But in this case I said, what do you think you're anxious about before we started? And she said, I'm afraid this won't work. And I said, so am I. And she said, you're kidding. What are you talking about? I said, well, your brain does all the work. So I'm interested to see how your brain will handle this and how it will deal with your issues. So at the end, hopefully you'll be much better, right? Yeah, I don't do it. I guide them and they come up with all their own solutions. And isn't that better? So the compassion fatigue is not there. You don't have that. Oh my God. I'm like, if I don't do art in two weeks, I get withdrawal. Because I really want the high too, that the clients get right. So happy when they're done.

You work in magic. You get to watch those miracles happen. And it's Fun.

Art can be fun even for a bad trauma. When they change it, they can do funny things to the person. They can arrest people in their mind. And that part of the brain, the limits and believes it, the part here, they always have the real fact. So you never, ever lose the memory. But what happens is it becomes factual. It's just the images and the sensations that are gone, right?

You take the emotion off the top of it, right?

And then you normalize it in the brain. Some people don't think it was art that worked because they just feel like it was always that way, you know, like, oh, I woke up and I was just better, you know, what about that you did? Don't you want to credit that?

Maybe I was walking in the office. Whatever does it right? Let me run a couple scenarios by you. One, I got a scenario. This is a real case scenario with the person who has an addiction. And then also another scenario related, because, Laney, a lot of the people that follow this channel are the family members of people who have addiction. Like, the majority are probably family members. So I want to give you a family member example. So one example is I have this. This lady that I've been seeing for quite a while who has a problem with alcohol. And she traces a lot of her alcohol use back to when she was a young person, like a teenager. She had a very like, traumatizing drug experience, like on a hallucinogenic, like a LSD drug or something like that. Had like a bad trip. And after that reasons after that, it's like been this overwhelming anxiety that it's kind of like almost like a paranoia, sort of like a social anxiety, but but slightly more paranoid. This like dread feeling of interacting with people. It like interferes with her work. It makes her want to drink all this stuff. Is that something that Art could benefit?

So what happens is a client's responsibility is to take the trauma and make it a scene in their mind to cover it, like the eye movement. So we don't get involved with what it is, just help them to do that. Once you do it, that is what the brain will process. Showing the brain the problem. So it's not about what it was or how it happened. It's how do you put it into the formula and the format that art will process it. So we don't get that involved in what the thing is and go down deep in the ocean with the client cutting their feet on the rocks, whatever. We bring the client up to us by doing a formula. So, for example, you go into the dentist and nobody likes the dentist. But if you have a problem, the dentist does not say, tell me how that problem's been hurting you. When do you get it? They might say that, but they don't spend the whole time. They say, I'm going to put that tooth into a way I understand to help them. So I'm not going to sit there and talk and their mouth is open anyway. I'm just going to work on it and know what the result is. I don't know. I don't really have to know how long they've had it. What does the pain feel like? What helps the pain? You know, kind of. They don't spend their time really doing it. They just do their formula. Yeah, that's kind of like how art works as well. And what. Only time it doesn't work if the client's not motivated or doesn't want it to work. Because it's not mind control. It's getting your brain to go back to normal. Like, the things that are troubling, you know, what it.

The thing, the image that's coming to my mind now is that I'm kind of a metaphor person. But about. About six weeks ago, I started having extreme pain in my abdomen. I didn't know what it was. It escalated really fast. Within two hours, I was bawling my husband, Like, I had to go to the er. I thought my appendix was gonna burst or something. Like, I didn't know. I got the er. Like, I'm so in pain. I'm like, throwing up. Can't stop throwing up. Bawling, like, it was terrible. So they figured out I had, like, a kidney stone, which I thought had before.

I heard that's bad.

Well, it is. It's not fun. And I've not had it, so I had no idea. And so they're giving me, like, all these drugs, and it wasn't even working. Like, big drugs. I won't even say the names because it could trigger people watching. But I'm like. They're like, did that help? I'm like, no, it didn't help. Like, what else you got? You know? And then finally, you know, they image it, they tell me what it is, and, you know, whatever it is, probably like this big, but it causes such a disruption in that little tube that goes from your kidney down to your bladder. I mean, it was like, you know, like sand or something. But it was more pain than I'd ever felt. I mean, it was awful. And finally they couldn't even get my pain under control. But they sent Me to surgery. They took it out and I was just better. That's it. It's done in my home. No more pain. It was fine.

My partner had that little pain.

Take it out and it fixes it.

It's so painful. No, but that's like art. It's not like they sat and talked with you and said, you know, they may have said how long if they had the pain. But I mean, they didn't say, what do you think it is? How big do you think it is? Let's talk about it. They just went in and did the procedure. Yeah.

The nurse came and said I was going to go to service. She said, are you nervous? Are you scared? And I was like, no, just do it. I was like, do it. Whatever you gotta do. Yeah.

I had a cesarean for my son and it came and he goes, I'm so sorry. I'm like, just get him out. You know, because I want it.

Right.

Right. I don't talk about it, just do it. And so he's okay.

Exactly right. To me, it's just like the things that the, the. To me, the kidney zone reminds me of. This is like how something so small can cause so much. I mean, just chaos quickly. And then how when that one little thing is. If you, if you just resolve it.

The jack and box causes pain when everyone walks into a room. For all the years that she had to live with it because the four year old was overseas.

Four year old, right.

Held on to the scared. The brain said you have to be scared when something pops up.

Right.

And that's not correct. So the limbic system amygdala makes. Amygdala makes a lot of mistakes. It's often wrong, you know?

Yeah. And I mean really, especially when things happen when you're really young and you can't even really conceptualize or make sense of things. And then things get. I call. It's like wired in wrong, you know.

By the way, I do an art intro. Anybody can dream for free. My go to the web Artworks with s now.com on the top it says free intro. I saw a woman who can't go upstairs. Stairs. Well, it sometimes blacks up because when she was little, she thought that a space between the stairs, she'd fall through. Like at 5 years old, I have a video of her going up a fire escape. Not that I would, but with no hands. After I did the art on her.

That's super scary stairs. Yeah, those are scary. Yeah.

So you can see that video if you join the art. Free art intro. I Do every Wednesday of the last Wednesday of the month at 6pm if anybody wants to watch it. I talk about the brain, how it works in the brain. I tell video people after. You know, I have a veteran who says he slept well the night before after art, when he never could sleep and the images were not replaying in his mind, so he was pretty happy. And a car accident where it's guilty for five years. And because someone got hurt, now he had drive. He sent me a thank you. So you see those videos people want to watch that.

That. That makes you a believer when you see it, you know, sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have time for a few questions, Laney?

Oh, sure. I love questions.

Okay, I'm gonna scan through. I'm gonna pick a few and put them on the screen. We'll look at them together.

Sure.

Here's one quick question, Tanya. It's. It's accelerated resolution therapy, not radiation.

Oh, you don't.

Accelerated.

So it's resolution. Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, I like the name because it says what it does. It's fast and it does resolve things. And by the way, the fact that the short version is art didn't bother me because we erase in the brain. We do lots of artwork in the brain, and little kids can draw on a whiteboard, and I can help them with the drama that way. So it's very artistic and creative. So the fact that it's art doesn't bother me to confuse it with drawing, because we do art in the brain.

It is like that. So it works for the acronym and kind of as the metaphor, as perfect.

As opposed to prolonged exposure. That means you have to see it over and over and over.

You know, you're scary as it is.

I just want a prolonged massage. I don't want prolonged therapy.

Yeah. So Debbie wants to know how to find someone who's trustworthy to do this.

Ask the therapist from the Web. If you look it up, whether they've had both advanced and the basic. If you care about that. The basics should get people enough to do trauma and other things very quickly. But the advance might be interesting if you have something a simple trauma basic ought to be able to do it. I don't know what they do once they leave the training.

Right.

I'm not in the sessions, but I give them a script to follow. So if they can get the eyes to move, I use a stick with the index card on top. It's really easy. But if they can get the person's eyes to move and follow the script, it should work okay. Or have them call me.

Even if you. If you Google up accelerated resolution therapy trained person in my area or something like that, it should give you some people who. Who have identified. They've been trained in that we have.

Over 8, 000 trained.

Okay.

In small groups since 2010.

Wow. All right, so Jennifer's got a question here. In the unfortunate event that they have another traumatizing situation later on, would you grow through the same process again for the new trauma?

Let me just quickly say the poster worker with the dog, the bitter, called me up years later and said, there's been another dog biting in the area. Do I need more art? I said, call the police and see what the disposition was of that dog. Well, the dog was visiting, didn't live there, and was put euthanized and put to sleep. So she called back and said, you're right. I don't need a. Another session for normal stuff where you should be afraid. Then be afraid. We don't take away a fear of holding a snake and get you to hold a snake. I wouldn't do it either. So it's up to the client if the thing that happens in the future requires a session. Since they know how it works, they get to choose when they want to come back with me. So come back and say, hey, I have a relationship problem. My spouse cheated. Can you help me with that? Yes, I can. And that's different than the car. Accidental. You probably have to come in again. So it's up to the client as to what they're feeling and the sensations and do they require another session?

Yeah. You'll know if you feel that trauma feeling come back, which I'm glad you said. That example that you just said, Lainey, about the My spouse cheetah, because that reminded me. I meant to ask you, I give you the scenario about family members. So. So a lot of the family members that we see, like particularly spouses or parents whose children are addicted or even. Even if your parents are addicted, what happens to them is they get sore. I call it. This isn't in the dsm, but what I call it is it's some sort of mix between post traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. So they. They. They live in fear so long. It's that complex trauma response. You know, there's. They feel like they're gonna throw up every time the phone rings at night. You know, they're so scared for so long, and then they start doing all these crazy checking behaviors and. And all this stuff, trying to control the situation. Would this work to reduce anxiety on something like that?

Well, we don't call it anything. I don't call anything complex. I call it more scenes. Okay, do. I don't go that deep. I also, when someone says abreaction, which is a strong emotion, I don't use the word word scary. I call it strong emotion. So there's words I keep away from. But again, the person would come in, they would see their ritualizing behaviors in the scene and let the brain cover it and see how their brain wants to handle it. And I do interventions. I do all kinds of things that people can learn. But basically it's a client showing the brain the problem and then solving it themselves, which is the best way to solve it. Everything you've ever seen is in your brain. For example, I had a guy who was cheating on his wife. He said, should I stay with my wife or the other person who's someone who is very passive? I said, in your mind, go to the mailbox, your mailbox. There'll be a letter to tell you what to do. So I'm doing the eye movements. He sees that and he comes back, goes, I don't like what it said. I said, what did the letter say? He said, I should be by myself and get me in order before I decide, which every therapist would love that he said that. Right. So I came to that conclusion maybe because I saw a TV show where somebody said that everything's up there and your brain will connect to what it needs. Okay. At the end of the session, I said, how'd you like the session? He said, I didn't know I was.

So smart to kind of like, like helps the person connect to their subconscious intuition, knowledge that the stuff that they can't quite grab. These visualizations help you get it is what I'm thinking with this mailbox example. Yeah, I like that. Okay.

Yeah, it's very quick and easy. And he was happy.

Can't be mad at you about what that letter in the mailbox said because you didn't. All right. So Lisa says, my son is 31 year old, alcoholic. He's been in treatment in Arizona for five years. They did EMDR on him and said there was no trauma. That was five years ago. He continues to drink. He's currently in rehab, moving to sober living. Can people who have not had trauma, but have trauma from being a sensitive person who internalize everything and it's not really a trauma incident. I hear many that feel like those who have addiction issues are because of trauma. Alec has the attitude that he doesn't. Hold on. There's more, I think. Yeah, let's see if I can find the rest of it here. I know there's more, but I can't see where the rest of it. So. So I think what. What Lisa's asking basically is, would. Would something like art work on a situation that's not like a specific PTSD trauma kind of traditional situation?

So we do it by having the brain see him drinking now currently, and go over it and say, that's the problem. I drink. Okay. Take the problem and put it into a scene. So you're showing your brain that, and then you follow the procedure, and you'll come out with a conclusion at the end and may need more than one to up and make sure it's okay. And we do that all the time. We do ongoing problems that just take a bit longer. We have the brain fight the urge with a metaphor. Right. You may see it as something physical, and you fight it in your brain. So we do all kinds of interesting things and can be very helpful, genuine, effective.

When you're. When you're talking about that. When you gave that example of, you know, we have the person imagine, like, a drinking scene. It dawns on me as an addiction therapist, what happens to people is. And sometimes it's that first experience of drinking, But a lot of times it's not. But. But somewhere in there, their brain connects. I like this. And it feels good. It's almost the opposite of a trauma reaction.

Right.

Even though it don't feel good anymore and it hasn't worked in a long time, they have it stuck in their brain that there's something positive here, and they keep going back.

It's almost like trauma opposite secondary end. So here's what happens. The first time they see it, they get high and they like it.

Yeah.

But don't forget, we process out the feeling.

Right.

If they want to not like it the second time, it gets less and less. So again, you let the processor take care of the fact, because the truth will come out that it doesn't feel that good.

So the brain can connect, because that's what happens is I keep remembering these positive experience, even though I haven't liked it in a long time, even though it doesn't work for me, even though it actually makes me feel worse.

And I could do some things, like if it's alcohol, I could have them see on the bottle and connect their family.

Okay.

They're looking at what they're gonna lose.

Okay.

Right. And so the brain will make that connection. When they see it. Okay.

That makes perfect sense to me. Yeah, I like that.

Lots of creative interventions, but the main thing is to trust the eye movements. They will move it where the client needs to go. So if they get high the first time, it's fine because they're taking away this feeling of being high when you do it, if that's the right way to go and their brain is on board. So we don't take responsibility sort of for the what. What we're doing, more of how to set it up so the client has a responsibility of healing themselves. Right. Best thing ever.

Empowering. Right, Right.

They do. They do it. Yep.

Gail says she gets disappointed when she hears about treatments that are not readily available where she lives.

Oh, so do we.

Is this something that can be done virtually or not so much.

The reason I don't recommend virtual is I want to see the whole body. So you tell me you're not anxious when I do check your body, but your feet are flailing. And I also don't like the way it looks online. I want to be able to control your eye movement, so if you slow down, I can speed you up in person. I also want to be there if you decide to leave the screen or I get a computer glitch. I don't want. That could be devastating. So I never do. People fly in to see me. I just. You know, they'll come from California.

Thinking, is that. Is Gail, Is it this? I don't know where you live, and if you live way, way, like across the earth, maybe it's different, but. But literally, if this thing. Art. Has the possibility of helping you in two or three sessions, I guarantee you're going to save a lot of money if you just fly.

Yeah.

Do it for a few days and get this done is still going to cost you thousands less than years of therapy and torture and everything.

Yeah, it's just better. But there are art therapists that will do it online. I never will do it online for the reasons I mentioned. It's not as good. I have an intuition. I want to feel that with you. I want to see your whole body, how you're doing. I don't want to choppy. I don't want to lose contact with you. And, you know, if someone leaves a screen, then who knows? You know, if you can't get back, you're seeing the problem. Even though it gets better and better and better.

Right, right, right.

Be there with you. So other therapists may do it. I have people flying to see me. I had a guy From Panama come in like three days. And he was heavy.

Oh yeah.

Like people.

Well worth it.

Well, I do see people. I have a website called erasetraumannow.com and so the book with me, you know, I'm busy, but I put people in because it's my life.

Yeah, Debbie wants.

I love that question.

Does it work? Oh, my God.

I just had someone called today. My sister has a recurrent nightmare since for many years. It's so simple. You see, the nightmare is the problem and they put a different ending and they never have it again in one session. Always works.

Love it.

Easy.

The finisher says, I have. No, that's not the one I meant to put up there. Oh, this. And Tanya says. Tanya says, I'd love to see the videos that you were talking about on the last Wednesday of the month.

Right. So again, you're gonna go to the web. It's art W O R K S N O W dot com. Now when you get to my website, you can always go to accelerated resolution therapy.com will bring you there too. Go to the top of the page. It says free intro. You sign up and then you will get the link for the last Wednesday of the month at 6pm is what I do it every month, but you want to see it? Just, you know, tell them to sign up. And I get. I usually get about 100 signing up and 50 come because others may think the weather's good or something. They come. They. So. And I do Q A at the end of the intro as well.

Okay, wonderful. Well, I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for coming and sharing with us. This is so exciting. And I gotta tell you, I know that there's so many people out there that's never heard of this because I'm a therapist, been doing this 20 years and I just heard of it within the past six months. So I know that there's so many people out there that don't even know that this is a possibility.

I will say to the EMDR therapist watching, I did a paper on the difference between EMDR and art. It's on my web.

Okay.

Or you can write david@acceleratedresolutiontherapy.com no EMDR therapist I've met does it Francine Shapiro's Eight Pays Way. And they've all changed it. So I just say I change it too. And to seem to work really well. People are interested in learning it and I thank for the time because nobody hears about therapies. If you go to a stranger and say, if you heard of EMDR that been out 30 years, they say no.

So they.

They don't hear about therapies till they have to.

Right. That's unless you're like, living in this world. Right. But even though I live in this. This culture, I still have hearing about EMDR for a long time. But I'm just glad to get the word out there. I want people to know that this is. This is an option, and it's a good one.

It is a good one, I think, you know, higher power to something. Because it's so good that I think something inspires me. Beyond me, perhaps, But I heard anybody.

Talk about it that wasn't just like, amazed and thrilled about it.

So, again, if they get the book, they'll see about it, too. It's too good to be true. But you have to put my name in, because a lot of people pick that title, apparently, you know, and it's a easy.

It's a good title. Yeah.

Read it in a day and learn about it too, you know, but this has been great because I love to talk about it, you know, so much.

We appreciate it. And I'll link up for you guys to watch next, the video where Dr. Jackson talks about it. So you don't want to believe me? Don't believe Lainey. Maybe believe. Bye, everybody.