What is art?
“After just 4 sessions of ART, my mind was clearer, my thoughts moved slow enough that I could follow them, emotions were easier to manage and regulate, and I had control over how I reacted.”
“ART: Keep the knowledge, lose the pain”.
ART (Accelerated Resolution Therapy) is a treatment method of psychotherapy that uses eye movements to help the brain process past issues and traumas to rapidly recover from them.
My own personal exposure to ART began with the traumatic birth of my son. On the eve of my son’s third birthday I made a very vulnerable post on social media. Two separate people who didn’t know each other both sent me direct messages suggesting that I look into ART. The rest is history.
Long story short, the birth of my son was incredibly traumatic, with layers of separate traumas all smashed together in one big ordeal. This was followed by the worst form of post-partum mood disorder I have ever heard of (which is saying quite a bit coming from a therapist). My brain was blitzed. The smallest and most innocent of things would trigger a storm with mental, emotional, and physical symptoms suddenly shooting out of everywhere all at once. I had severe and chronic insomnia, extreme anxiety, mood outbursts, suicidal thoughts, depressed mood, and more. It was hell, it lasted for years, and I tried everything under the sun that I could find to try to get better. As a certified hypnotherapist myself I tried hypnotherapy with two different practitioners. It helped a little but not enough. I saw many different doctors, a psychologist, acupuncturists, homeopaths, and naturopaths; you name it, I tried it! Nothing was budging the trauma enough to alleviate the symptoms that were ruining my life.
The trauma kicked up worse every year right around my son’s birthday. What was supposed to be such a joyous time was also riddled with increased symptoms as memories of the traumatic birth were triggered. Close to my son’s third birthday was when I made that social media post talking about what I had been going through the last three years, and how it got worse each year at that time. Luckily, two different people reached out to suggest ART. And I couldn’t be more thankful that they did! I had tried everything else at that point, so I wasn’t exactly hopeful, but I was willing to try.
It took one session to process the birth trauma. One. Just one. And everything changed for me after that. Suddenly I wasn’t getting activated and elevated by the smallest of things. I could even think about my son’s birth with ease and feel totally fine inside! All of that stress for years was having a very negative impact on my marriage, and after ART I found it much easier to manage my emotions and communicate more clearly with my spouse. This was the relief I had been searching year for! I had finally found it.
For me the amazing work I did during that single 2-hour long ART session sent a signal to my brain that there were a few other things that wanted to be cleaned up as efficiently too. So I went back for about 3 more sessions in total. We worked on the trauma of my mom’s brain aneurysm that happened when I was 17, a very difficult breakup from about 10 years prior, and one session where we just tossed any notable life events all into one and cleaned those up. After just 4 sessions of ART, my mind was clearer, my thoughts moved slow enough that I could follow them, emotions were easier to manage and regulate, and I had control over how I reacted. This was a level of health I had never experienced before. After experiencing those benefits for myself it was a given that I was going to become certified in this treatment modality. I couldn’t see myself trying to help clients using any other approaches when I knew the powerful impact that ART has to offer!
Okay, so what the heck is this allegedly amazing treatment?!
ART uses simple eye movements to help process past issues and traumas, effectively de-escalating the emotional and somatic responses that occur when the memories become triggered. ART follows a set protocol to access the original memory and fully process out the emotions and bodily sensations attached to it. The client and therapist then continue using eye movements to replace the emotions and bodily sensations instead with desired feelings in the place of that memory. ART says “Keep the knowledge, lose the pain”. The memory itself remains intact. You can still recall all the facts as they occurred. But you no longer have to experience the unpleasant emotions and bodily sensations that were imprinted along with the memory at the time of the event.
One of the most wonderful things about ART is that you do not talk about the traumatic event during this method. There is very specific reasoning for this utilizing an understanding of neurobiology (see blog post titled Trauma, Memory, and the Brain). The benefits to this are twofold: For one, you as the client do not need to trudge up or reveal anything uncomfortable to talk about during your sessions. And secondly, the therapist doesn’t need to experience vicarious trauma hearing explicit details of trauma after trauma that their clients have experienced. For myself, I had almost decided to leave this profession after many years of hearing the nitty gritty details of horrible things done to people. I am a highly visual person and my brain creates crystal clear images of the stories told to me. I couldn’t handle carrying the pain of any more of these terrible movies living inside my brain. And luckily now, with the power of ART, I can help people clear their own trauma without sustaining anymore vicarious traumas myself. Everyone wins!
Most issues can be resolved in 1-3 sessions of ART. That can be really hard for people to believe when they have been carrying around so much pain and so many symptoms for years and years. I have seen ART clear up a variety of issues that people have had sometimes for decades! From birth trauma, combat, all variety of terrible accidents, altercations with law enforcement, to everything in between I have witnessed the incredible power of ART. All that a client needs to be able to utilize ART is to be able to move your eyes back and forth for an extended period of time, and be able to track a thought. If you can do those two things, you can do ART!