The University of South Florida issued a rather provocative press release on Dec. 10, 2013.
Kevin Kip, Ph.D. announced a brief treatment for PTSD. His target population is vets, bless him for that. Anytime we do something for veterans, I am very enthusiastic.
Here is a link to his press release:
http://www.sciencenewsline.com/articles/2013121000110031.html
The model is a combination of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and what sounds like Steve Andreas’ NLP (neurolinguistic programming). While Steve is an old friend, I have personally never had much response to NLP techniques, so I have to qualify my response. I don’t know that NLP doesn’t work, I just know it doesn’t work very well with me, and also with my clients. I may have an evil or stupid streak that keeps it from working with me. You can find lots of YouTube videos on EMDR and on NLP, but I’ll link a particular one later.
Kip uses the usual EMDR eye movements which do reduce anxiety in patients, and I have had reasonable success with that technique. Then he does something that sounds like NLP. The press release describes it thus:
“In the second phase, and with similar clinician input, the patient “replaces” the distressing images they have seen with positive ones in a way that the original distressing images can no longer be accessed.”
Steve has talked for several years about shifting the representation of memories, doing things like moving where the memory is (Upper right? Lower left?), changing how the memory is expressed (Color? Black-and-white?), changing the sequence (imagining the memory and a movie and playing it backwards) and so on. That’s what I thought of when I read the report.
So even though when I do these things it makes no difference to how I feel, this EMDR + changing the image might make a difference to you or to your clients. It is worth learning more about.
So here is a video of Steve doing work with a PTSD vet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5AmriQse4
I really like Steve, always have, and the video does illustrate the kind of work he likes to do. I have had some success with his movie theater technique, but nothing like he has here.
At the U of S. Florida the research continues. They are reporting some impressive outcomes, requiring only two to five sessions. They report that they are getting very good compliance, which is always a problem with PTSD treatment with veterans. I will bring you updates on this Kip research.
Leave a Reply