Tag: Flash and EMDR

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Why Body Activation is a Problem in Flash and How to Shop-Vac It

  • Overview of where problems occur in Flash approaches
    • Overactivation
    • Activating something other than a memory
    • Activating multiple memories
    • Anything confirming of the bad memory coming into awareness, including relationships between the memory and the calm scene
    • The calm scene not inducing an experience
    • Somatic disturbance is often why the SUDs is a “two” and won’t go lower
  • Overactivation is inevitable sometimes
  • It most often occurs in the first handful of times we check in on the memory
  • Why activation and noticing in the same scene are problematic
  • For EMDR and somatic practitioners, this is anathema, but… we do it in the service of recovery.
  • Scoop it up
  • Vacuum it up
  • Shop-Vac
  • Even if it doesn’t get all of it, simply some of the gunk going into the shop-vac is helpful
  • The shop-vac canister is a container, send it out of awareness