The Four Blinks Version of Flash Podcast

On-demand and free training in the Four Blinks Version of Flash. Introduction to Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC. More information is at: http://FourBlinks.com

More information is at: http://FourBlinks.com

Step One: Develop the Container Step Two: Develop the Calm Scene Step Three: Identify but Do Not Activate the Bad Memory Step Four: Calm Scene with Blinks Step Five: Lightly Activate and Container Step Six: Clear out Residual Distress by Walking through Each Frame of the Memory Step Seven (Optional): Flash Future Template

More information at: http://FourBlinks.com

There was a lot of partial understanding about what was happening to memories inside Flash in the first few years after it was introduced.  A good chunk of this is inevitable with something that is new.  It took Shapiro several years to understand that what was happening in EMDR was bigger than memories simply losing some distress.  A lot of the confusion for Flash, I think, comes from the fact that Flash was developed by an EMDR trainer and it emerged in a very specific and existing institutional and training context.  There are advantages to this.  Flash was designed and billed, perhaps too much to fit into this context and this audience.  It was dressed to look like, feel like, and plug into an existing EMDR worldview… and it is still viewed in many circles as an awkward little sister to EMDR Therapy.  But Flash is growing up.  It’s developing a voice and identity of its own.  And it teaches us clearly and articulately about one way that humans can rescue the self from the past.

• It was understood almost exclusively as a way to lower heat in memories
• It was viewed primarily as a resource to do in preparation of the real work of EMDR (almost as a way to salvage the unsteady marriage of EMDR and complex trauma and of course other interventions in the last three decades have tried to step into the rockiness of that relationship).
• In short, Flash was viewed as helpful, but not transformative.  It was not and still is not widely viewed as an approach to psychotherapy.  If Flash does what I claim it does, it has to become an approach to psychotherapy. It simply has to.  If this is a way that humans can fully and adaptively heal, it cannot simply be a technique.
• I think we have since learned that Flash often didn’t fully resolve memories regularly six years ago because we were not doing Flash approaches well.
• Now, it’s no longer controversial among those who have done a lot of Flash well to say that Flash fully resolves memories.
• And resolves memories using every metric that we would consider a memory resolved in EMDR or any other transformational psychotherapy.
• You do not need to believe this.  Flash resolves memories to zero distress, there is a positive belief about the self and the world that the client will believe right now related to that memory, and memories resolved in Flash do generalize… yes, probably not as much as in EMDR, but they do generalize.
• It is no longer controversial to claim that Flash lets you get there.  By saying that, I do not mean to imply that how you take the journey doesn’t matter.  Airplane Cleveland Hopkins > San Francisco… Cleveland > Drive to San Francisco.
• Sometimes clients just need to heal.  And it’s only great news that we can put most clients on a plane and get them there.
• If you are an EMDR therapist, you may be under the impression that EMDR causes shifts in cognition.  It does because it is a transformational psychotherapy.  Healing transforms trauma and healing causes shifts in cognition.  That’s what healing means.  Same thing for generalization.  Healing causes memories to generalize.  Shapiro just got an up-close view of healing.  Now you will also, but from another angle when you also have Flash on your toolbench.

Extended Step One Script: Develop a Container (Client Can Reuse Between Memories and Sessions) 
If Flash is a way to process traumatic information without distress, but there is distress in traumatic information, it is helpful to have a place for the distress to go that is external to the client’s nervous system.  This may sound bizarre, to separate activation from distress, but that’s what makes Flash effective.  If the distress and the calm scene are both in awareness, Flash will not work, or will work at a crawl and leave substantial debris.
The container in EMDR Therapy and Flash therapy have similarities and differences.  They are similar in that both are boxes that hold difficult stuff.  In EMDR Therapy, we may scoop residual distress up once at the end of a session, see it go into the container, close the door, and leave it there.  In this version of Flash, the container will be used every time we quickly check the memory and all distress will be routed directly into the container, much like a hot potato might be tossed into a casserole dish.  Since we may be checking the memory 30-45 times in an average Flash session, we need a new and empty container to come each time (we’ll talk about why in Step Five).  Note that we are working on the memory only one microslice of it at a time.  The whole memory is not containered, only the right now microslice.  They’re not telling you what they are containering, but if they did, it would be something like: “It’s the way he’s looking at me.”  “The feeling when he says a particular word.”  It is a single frame of the video that gets containered.  If the client plays the video, they have played too much.  If they are telling you what they are containering, they are activating too much. In Flash, the memory is purposefully pushed out of awareness, because all of awareness is needed for the calm scene.  And this all happens quickly, like handling a hot potato.
The container can be a file folder, a box, a book, a chest, ceramic pots, or anything that works for the client.  The container is then “pushed or sent” far away from the client (ideally hundreds of miles away) to help get it out of direct focus and awareness.  In Step One, we develop the container that we will use over and over.
It is helpful to confirm that the container works by imagining putting something neutral in it when you are developing it, like an imaginary business card.  This allows us to test and troubleshoot the container safely.   “See the business card go in the container… does it feel like the business card is in the container?  Yes. Imagine the container going far away until it is just a tiny dot on the horizon.
The vast majority of clients are able to visualize a container.  If the client struggles to visualize, see the Four Blinks podcast episodes about problems visualizing for ways to outsource the visualization component of the container.

Step One (Part Two): A Container for Body Distress
Teaching the Shop-Vac Resource
This information is in the script, but I’m also walking you through it here.
Many other versions of Flash produce sessions that end with residual distress and often it is not clear why.  This version of Flash is grounded in memory reconsolidation as its working mechanism, which has its focus on the client experiencing the calm scene in ways that are disconfirming the expectation/schema in the bad memory. If the client is having body activation from the memory, the client may be having a confirming experience of the expectation in the bad memory (“I’m feeling how I felt when the bad memory was happening”).  Body activation is a problem in the Four Blinks Version of Flash for this reason.  When it appears, the client should be instructed to tell you, so you can help them “scoop” it out and put it in the container or Shop-Vac it out and push the Shop-Vac canister out of awareness.  In Flash, the goal is to process the traumatic information as information and not as distress.
As with all resources, it is a good idea to develop and practice this resource before it is needed.  It is very difficult for clients to learn a new resource when they are flooded or in significant trauma-related distress.
Script: Have you ever used a Shop-Vac or a large coin vacuum at a carwash?
Can you imagine holding the hose of a vacuum with one hand and feeling its suction with the other?
Can you imagine it picking up a small pile of dirt or sand?
If you quickly scan your body right now, can you find a knot, pressure, tension, or emptiness, even if only a little bit?
Can you imagine the “gunk” of that going into your Shop-Vac hose and just try to see the stress or feelings leaving those places and going into the hose like it is colored smoke?  Note: It is not important that the client feel it all (or even most of it) go away.  The Shop-Vac can become a ritual-like resource that may help direct attention and awareness away from that triggering sensation in the body.
Good.  Can you see the canister of the vacuum get pushed far out of awareness… just send it several hundred miles away?

All reprocessing “work” in Flash is done while the client is experiencing a calming scene.  Step Two is where we develop this calm scene.  Again, Steps One and Two are the hardware of this approach and we’ll use that hardware over and over in subsequent Flash sessions.

The experience can be imaginary, in the form of a video or picture, or can be a process that the client is actively doing–like petting an actual dog or rocking real baby, see Demos One and Five for pets and actual babies).

The therapist will eventually (in Step Four) guide the client to make a series of rapid blinks while experiencing the calm scene, so the calm scene will need to be something the client can go in and out of quickly.  The scene can be anything that is calming, relaxing, distracting, compelling, or interesting.  It needs to be compelling enough to catch the client’s attention and cause an experiential shift that is different than the expectation/schema in the bad memory.

The calm scene, which Phil Manfield calls the Positive Engaging Focus, can be almost anything.  These are examples:

• The client watches a beautiful, relaxing, or funny video on YouTube or another service.
• The client remembers a salient scene from a vacation.
• The client rocking an actual baby or petting an actual dog (or memories of those activities).  Or, the client watching a cute video of her dog or pet.
• The client playing a musical instrument (or imagining playing one if the client has those skills).
• The client imagines cooking his favorite recipe (getting out the recipe, etc).  Or, watching cooking videos.  Or the client brings their favorite sandwich to session and spends 35 minutes smelling it and taking little bites of it.
• The client with piano training imagines playing their favorite piece of music on the piano.
• The client listens to a song that has a long history of inducing peace and relaxation.
• The client watches videos of food (hot pizza coming out of the oven, etc).  Assess for disordered eating beforehand.
• With a child client, have the client find a video of their favorite YouTuber playing their favorite part of their favorite video game.

If the client has complex trauma or a client comes to a session already flooded, it is highly recommended to outsource the scene to a YouTube video.  Anything that the client finds relaxing can work.  It is difficult for many clients with complex trauma to create and notice a rapid shift in affect if the calm scene has to be created through imagination in the five seconds between “blinks.”  A client with a pervasively traumatized system is likely has a very busy head.  The first choice with complex trauma should be to outsource the calm scene to a video that the client selects.

Verify that the client can “go into and load up the senses of the calm place” before proceeding.  Verify that the calm scene induces a calming, comforting, amused, distracted, or relaxing state.

Parts Language: Does this scene/activity/video work for all parts of you?  Do any parts need a different kind of calm scene?  On occasion, different parts of the client will use different calm scenes in a parallel way (like you are teaching and using this resource in a group setting).  See podcast episodes about working with client parts.

This is the step where we will spend most of our time and where all of the reprocessing of the micro-slices of the memory occurs.  Most of the Four Blinks Version of Flash is spent in a loop between Steps Four and Five.  This is the only step where blinks are included.

When you arrive at Step Four for the first time in a session, instruct the client on how to do the blinks: Bring up the positive scene and let me know when you are there.  I will say blink every five seconds and when I do, you just blink your eyes several times quickly.  After blinking, go right back into the calm scene.  We will do this for about 30 seconds at a time.  [Give the client a moment to load the positive scene].

After the first time you are in Step Four, say one of the following (do not repeat the instructions above, since the client knows what to do when you say “blink”):

• “Return to your calm scene, let me know when you are there.”
• “Load up your calm scene and just notice the details of it.  Nod or indicate when you are there.”

While the client is in the calm scene, the therapist says “blink” every five seconds for a total of five times (about 30 seconds for the whole set).  Verify that the client is blinking several times rapidly.  If the client blinks more than several times quickly or blinks slowly, it will consume time unnecessarily from the next five second exposure to the calm scene.   Most clients simply blink twice rapidly.  It is not essential that the blinks occur at exactly five seconds (sometimes four seconds, sometimes seven seconds are just fine… nothing magical happens at five seconds).

When you have said “blink” a total of five times at about five seconds apart, ask the client:  “Good.  We you able to keep finding your way back into positive scene?”

If the client struggled to stay in the scene because of distractions, normalize that.  It is not necessary to be in the calm scene 100% of the time when distractions come.  If the client is struggling to return to the calm scene after the blinks, consider switching to a more compelling scene or to a compelling video that the client can watch.  Also, it will take multiple rounds of practice to quickly load up and go in and out of the calm scene.

If part of the trauma memory intrudes on the calm scene, that is called an “intersection.”  If the memory intersects with the calm scene, instruct the client: “see the part of the memory that came into your calm scene go into your container, see the door close, and push your container even farther away.  Push it several hundred miles away.”  Then immediately return to Step Four for another round of calm scene with blinks.

If the client reports that he was able to be mostly in the scene, go to Step Five to get the next link of activation.  Again, most of the work will occur in a cycle between Steps Four and Five.

Important suggestion: Since loading the calm scene quickly is such a key part of this therapy, it is a good idea to do two rounds in Step Four prior to checking the bad memory in Step Five the first time you arrive in Step Four.  Do not do repeated rounds of Step Four after the first time you are in this step when working on a memory or it will unnecessarily slow the process.

The goal in this step is to microactivate a tiny, tiny, piece of the memory content.   We decrease activation by decreasing the amount of time that the client is exposed to the bad memory. Activating the memory too much may cause the following, all of which are problems that must be addressed and resolved immediately in this version of Flash:

• A part of the video of the memory plays (we want a single frame only from the bad memory… not video content).
• Body activation to appear (if body activation appears, see the Shop Vac resource in this guide or in the resource videos on EMDRThirdWeekend.com).  Too much body activation may cause memories other than the one we are targeting to come into awareness.
• A flashback occurs (teach all clients the sensory grounding resource in this guide or use your own sensory grounding exercises).
• Problems containering are usually problems of overactivation.

In order to lightly activate the memory and container it, say something like one of the following:

• “Very quickly, open the door on the bad memory and immediately close it.  Whatever you notice in this millisecond, catch it, container it, and push it out of your awareness.  Let me know when it is gone.”
•  “Check the memory for one millisecond and the instant that you find something, immediately container it and push the container out of your awareness.  Let me know when it is gone.”

When the client indicates that the next micoslice of the the distressing memory is containered and sent out of awareness, quickly go back to Step Four and cycle between Steps Four and Five until the client can glance at the memory and can’t identify any distress.

If the client cannot find any distress when glancing at the memory, go to Step Six.

Important Safety Considerations:

• Therapists should be comfortable using sensory grounding for clients who have flashbacks or other intrusive symptoms when glancing at the memory.  It is essential that all Flash clients be taught sensory grounding exercises prior to engaging in direct trauma work.  See the sensory ground resource available in this packet.
• Carefully review the Troubleshooting and FAQ sections before working with clients in this version of Flash.

After the client cannot identify any distress in the memory in Step Five, say something like one of the following:

• “Now just flip through each frame of the memory one at a time looking for any left-over pieces of distress, even if it’s a tiny bit.  Let me know when you find the first piece of distress.”
• “Now that you can’t find distress from looking outside in, let’s walk through the memory slowly like it’s a video you are playing from the beginning.  Let me know let me know the instant you find any distress, even if it’s a tiny bit.”

If there is any distress: “See whatever is distressing in this millisecond go into your container, see the container close, and push the container far out of your awareness.  Let me know when it is gone.” 

 When the client indicates that the memory is containered, quickly return to Step Four and do another round of calm scene with blinks.  Then, return to Step Six and ask: “Is there any heat remaining in that part of the memory that just had distress a moment ago?”  If there is any residual distress, return to Step Four for a round of calm scene with blinks.  Keep checking for distress in just that piece of the memory and send the client back to Step Four until there is no distress in that piece of the memory.

When there is no distress in that part of the memory, instruct the client to: “Play the memory forward and let me know as soon as you find the next link of distress.”  When the next piece of distress is found, keep doing loops between Step Four (the calm scene with blinks) and checking the distress of just this piece until the distress is gone in that piece.  Keep playing the memory forward until the client can play the full memory with no distress on any channel.

Sometimes the distress that comes at this stage may be in the form of thoughts, for example, “It’s just upsetting that it happenened.”  Put that thought in the container and it is likely to decrease in distress after a round or two of blinks in the calm scene.  Sometimes clients need to visualize thoughts being written into a piece of paper and see that paper go into the container in order make the thoughts concrete enough to container.

If the client is able to play all parts of the memory and there is no distress on any channel, then the memory is resolved.  Check-in with the memory next session to verify that all parts of the memory remain resolved.

Note: Do not be surprised if clients find pieces of the video of the memory in Step Six that still feel very distressing.  This is common.  They are likely to be metabolized quickly after several rounds in the calm scene with blinks.

The Flash future template allows you to easily leverage the work you just did when the memory resolved toward a future scene.

Examples where a Flash future template may be helpful:

• Relationship (of any type) conflict that the client just resolved is likely to continue. Target a future incident of this person doing or saying something that is triggering and similar to the memory you just resolved.
• Auto accident that you just worked on.  Target a future scene where the client is driving by the accident site sometime soon with the goal of not feeling panic.
• Sexual assault memory that the client just resolved involves a particularly triggering aspect that affects the client’s current intimate relationship AND the client would like to desensitize that trigger further.  Target a future scene where the client is engaging in consensual sexual activity in which that trigger occurs.
• Thanksgiving with family is highly triggering for many people.  Christmas happens 30 days later.  Same people, same racist uncle, different foods.  After resolving the memory of Thanksgiving, target the scene of Christmas.

In general, Flash future templates work better when past work has been resolved and you simply change the orientation to the future prong.  Again, the future scene should not be catastrophic (i.e. “now imagine your other child dies…,” etc).

Script: Since we have time, would you like to leverage the work that you just completed toward a potential future scene?  The future scene should be one that is likely to happen in the next few weeks and it shouldn’t be catastrophic.  Can you think of something that is related to the memory that you just completed that might happen in the next few weeks that would be helpful to try to calm down before it happens?

Engage in the following loop between A and B until the client can play the future scene and there is no distress on any channel:

A: Microactivate the Future Scenario

“Think very quickly about that future scene and see whatever is distressing about it in this millisecond go into your container.  Push your container out of your awareness.  Let me know when it is gone.”  When client indicates it is gone, go to the right column for more calm scene with blinks and continue looping between left and right columns until there is no distress in the future scene.

B: Do Calm Scene with Blinks

“Load up your calm scene and let me know when you are there…” When the client indicates they are there, say the word “blink” every five seconds for a duration of 30 seconds (exactly the same as you did in Step Four when working on the memory).  After 30 seconds in the calm scene with blinks, ask the client: “Were you able to stay in the calm scene?”  If activation intruded on the calm scene, container that activation and return to the calm scene with blinks, before returning to check the part of the memory that last intruded.

Wrap Up

End by playing the video of the future scene, containering any distress that appears, and doing rounds in the calm scene with blinks until the client can play the future scene with no distress.

If the way you do Flash works to help your clients reliably, predictably, and safely reprocess memories, keep doing what you are doing. If Flash isn’t quite getting you there, let’s reduce it to several very simple variables and make adjustments from there so that nearly all of your clients can clear almost anything they decide to reprocess.

There was a lot of partial understanding about what was happening to memories inside Flash in the first few years after it was introduced.  A good chunk of this is inevitable with something that is new.  It took Shapiro several years to understand that what was happening in EMDR was bigger than memories simply losing some distress.  A lot of the confusion for Flash, I think, comes from the fact that Flash was developed by an EMDR trainer and it emerged in a very specific and existing institutional and training context.  There are advantages to this.  Flash was designed and billed, perhaps too much to fit into this context and this audience.  It was dressed to look like, feel like, and plug into an existing EMDR worldview… and it is still viewed in many circles as an awkward little sister to EMDR Therapy.  But Flash is growing up.  It’s developing a voice and identity of its own.  And it teaches us clearly and articulately about one way that humans can rescue the self from the past.

• It was understood almost exclusively as a way to lower heat in memories
• It was viewed primarily as a resource to do in preparation of the real work of EMDR (almost as a way to salvage the unsteady marriage of EMDR and complex trauma and of course other interventions in the last three decades have tried to step into the rockiness of that relationship).
• In short, Flash was viewed as helpful, but not transformative.  It was not and still is not widely viewed as an approach to psychotherapy.  If Flash does what I claim it does, it has to become an approach to psychotherapy. It simply has to.  If this is a way that humans can fully and adaptively heal, it cannot simply be a technique.
• I think we have since learned that Flash often didn’t fully resolve memories regularly six years ago because we were not doing Flash approaches well.
• Now, it’s no longer controversial among those who have done a lot of Flash well to say that Flash fully resolves memories.
• And resolves memories using every metric that we would consider a memory resolved in EMDR or any other transformational psychotherapy.
• You do not need to believe this.  Flash resolves memories to zero distress, there is a positive belief about the self and the world that the client will believe right now related to that memory, and memories resolved in Flash do generalize… yes, probably not as much as in EMDR, but they do generalize.
• It is no longer controversial to claim that Flash lets you get there.  By saying that, I do not mean to imply that how you take the journey doesn’t matter.  Airplane Cleveland Hopkins > San Francisco… Cleveland > Drive to San Francisco.
• Sometimes clients just need to heal.  And it’s only great news that we can put most clients on a plane and get them there.
• If you are an EMDR therapist, you may be under the impression that EMDR causes shifts in cognition.  It does because it is a transformational psychotherapy.  Healing transforms trauma and healing causes shifts in cognition.  That’s what healing means.  Same thing for generalization.  Healing causes memories to generalize.  Shapiro just got an up-close view of healing.  Now you will also, but from another angle when you also have Flash on your toolbench.

For more information, see: https://FourBlinks.com

Strategies for Target Memory Selection in Flash Therapy

• Steps One and Two should always be completed, tested, and practiced first with each client in the course of their treatment.
• Identifying a memory to work in any individual session on should be done only after we have confirmed that the container is still accessible and we have selected and verified that the scene/experience is accessible.
• Step Three is very rapid, 10 seconds or less.
• The act of identifying it is paired with the act of containing it.

Dilemma:

• What allows this approach to be remarkable and rapid also introduces the potential for peril.
• Need to target a specific memory AND it needs to be a memory
• We don’t want to talk about it.  Talking = activating, but we may need to do some talking to select that specific memory out of the whole of experience

Strategies to identify target memories

• Identify themes in prior sessions and get consent to work on something around that theme next session.  When the next session starts, ask for consent to work on a memory that is relevant to that theme.
• Target parts of the elephant in the room.  You can suggest targets related to presenting issue.  This can be lined up in the prior session, although I’m more likely to get general consent to work on something in prior sessions to avoid the client coming to session over-activated.
• Still a good idea to work on smaller targets first, to “test the gear.”
• If the client is in preparation phase for EMDR, one of the best strategies is to target memories (or memories insides of themes) that are most resonating lately.  This will help clients because we are targeting what has been most contributing to instability… client will get healthier faster because we are targeting the presenting issue sooner.
• The clients I’m most likely to be doing Flash with are the same clients where I’m probably not doing a detailed and chronological targeting sequence plan with… our energies are focused on trying to find somewhere to work that might be both helpful and tolerable to the system’s parts.  If you are working with a client with identified parts, invite the system to provide input on target selection and open the door to let any part veto that memory as a target today

Catcher’s Mitt Metaphor in Flash Therapy

• Something remarkable is happening right now in trauma recovery.  But, because we’re talking about trauma and our relationship with trauma is both too close and too dissociated, it’s really hard to see and it’s even harder to get any perspective on.
• For 130 years, we have assumed that clients need to have certain types of catharsis, distress, or reexperience as a prerequisite for healing from traumatic experiences.
• A large part of the point of exposure is to go there, get more comfortable going there, and to see that you have survived. 
• In EMDR, we engage in lengthy preparation to make sure clients are able to sit with and digest the distress that comes. Noticing the distress that comes is the active ingredient in EMDR Therapy.
• Noticing the distress that comes in Flash is an invitation for a mess.
• As a bridge to the container, I like to use the Catcher’s Mitt metaphor.  A catchers mitt is designed to receive fast things coming at it.  The catcher will often quickly toss the ball back to the pitcher or give it to the umpire.  In Flash Therapy, whatever comes out of the memory when we “open the door and close it” goes into the imaginary mitt and then goes directly into the container.  Again, we want to route whatever comes out as soon as we can into the container.  We don’t want to talk about it, explore it, or allow what comes out to connect to other things.  We want the client to identify the activated content, but not attach to it.
• In Flash therapy, activation and noticing are separate.  The very idea that we can separate activation and the results of that activation is pretty novel in modern psychotherapies.    All noticing is done in the calm scene.  We want that activated microslice to go straight into the container and out of awareness so that all of awareness is available to the calm scene.  If activation is showing up while we are trying to have an experience in the calm scene, Flash can stop working because the experience we are having is confirming instead of disconfirming of the expectation in the bad memory.

To do any Flash approach well, it is probably helpful to have some working theory about what is happening and how the information is being routed or processed.

Flash approaches have the potential to transform how we understand healing… how we make hot implicitly stored information absolutely normal memory information.  In this version of Flash, we’re trying to process the information as information, not as distress.  It’s a remarkable concept, the idea of separating difficult information from the distress inside it… and as we’ll talk about… what really makes recovery difficult isn’t always the distressful information in the memory, but our defenses against too much of that information coming into awareness at a rate or an intensity beyond our capacity to digest.

Important point: our goal is not to active defenses against the memory content, not to snap the mouse-trap of the amygdala.  Preparation includes an agreement with the client not to go-there-go there.  I jokingly describe this as like Catholic teen dating.  We have an agreement to kind-of, but not go there-go there.  There is distress in the memory content, but if we activate too much of the memory content then we have to also deal with our defenses against that memory content (which are often much more distressing and may play an active role in pushing a client out of their window of tolerance).  Metaphor: Imagine a prison warden who walks to a particular cell and unlocks it with a key.  He comes out and they walk, step by step, down the prison hall.  They pass prison guards, who nod at the warden.  Step by step, they can walk straight out of jail into sunshine.  Now, rewind.  Imagine the same Warden and the prisoner starts running. The defenses built into the system are activated against that.  The whole system is designed for containment.  Our goal is to walk this memory out, one directed step at a time.  We do that, in part, by activating the memory one tiny piece at a time.  If the video plays, the prisoner is running.  If other memories are connecting, the prisoner is running.  If the client is noticing distress, the prisoner is running. If the client is trying to make sense of anything, the prisoner is running.  

The blinks every five seconds in the calm scene “break up” the 30 second exposure to the calm scene into six five second exposures… presenting an exposure, exposure, exposure, exposure, exposure, and exposure to the disconfirming information of the calm scene.

The information that is being fully or partially processed while we are in the calm scene is the microslice of the memory that we just put into the container.  If that microslice had a distress of 6/10 (and we’re not asking… don’t ask… but if you were to ask…), after the calm scene, it is likely to have a lower distress.  If it now has a 3/10, that 3/10 will show up in subsequent openings of the door on the memory.  In short, whatever residual is left in working memory from that microslice that we put into the container, gets put back into the room of the memory.  And if it doesn’t come up when we open the door to the memory in subsequent checks, it will come up when we walk through the video of the memory in Step Six.

So we do this lightly activate/container (Step Five) and calm/scene blinks (Step Four) cycle over and over until the client can’t find any distress from looking outside of the door of the memory.  Then in Step Six, we ask the client to walk through each frame of the memory and let me know on one hand when you find any distress on any channel and immediately container with the other. Metaphorically, now that the client has cleaned out the things that really want to jump out of the room of the memory, we now walk through the room and look under the cushions and behind the couch.  Don’t be surprised if some distressful pieces are hiding somewhere in Step Six, within a round or two in Step Four they are effortlessly metabolized.

This episode focuses on different types of distress that may appear in trauma work and explores the types of distress that are most productive to metabolize.

Transformational trauma therapies typically involve transforming traumatic memories into more “normal” memories.  Out of all the prison cells of the limbic brain, we select one memory and change how this memory is experienced by the client from that point on.  Transforming a single memory changes at least slightly how the right now selves experience themselves and how the selves experience the world.  Transforming trauma transforms to some degree… everything.

In many transformational trauma therapies, at least part of what we are doing is transforming the distress encoded in the memory.  There is distress in almost any individual traumatic memory. However, that’s not the only distress that may be present.  One question that the therapist may want to ask is: what distress is productive to try to metabolize and what might be a goose chase.  Cleary, we want to metabolize the distress that is in the memory, but if too much memory comes into awareness or if memory comes with too much intensity, the system—which is designed for protection and containment—may have strong defenses against that much memory content showing up.

How this looks in Flash Therapy

• Overactivation or opening too many adjacent memories causes problems with containment
• Problems with body activation
• Problems experiencing the calm scene as a disconfirming experience

How this looks in EMDR Therapy

• When we are working with clients with complex trauma, we are often working with clients with a very narrow window of tolerance… even after extensive resource development
• Clients with complex trauma have well-developed and automatic survival strategies that kick in when too much distress is activated in too short of a time
• Noticing the distress or shut down from the defenses against the trauma is not as productive as noticing the content in the actual memory.
• We need that content to come at a digestible rate.  If it doesn’t we have a goose chase.  And you client is the goose and the chaser.
• Other forms of distress that don’t tend to be productive in either EMDR of Flash: existential questions or agendas.  Example: divorce memory turns into “Why do all my relationships not work out?”  “Why does everyone I have ever loved hurt me?”  “Will I every find love?”

Strategies to more effectively “walk a memory out” with clients with complex trauma

In EMDR:

• Work at the intersection of what is productive and tolerable
• Use the Shapiro-endorsed Video Tape Approach instead of going into the memory at the worst part
• Don’t lose track of the fact that we have selected the starting memory for a reason.  Anticipate that with clients with complex trauma, when the body feels a certain way, adjacent memories will want to come.  It’s not a good idea to open your little tea party to a whole part of town, just because everything there has the same body-feel.

In the Four Blinks Version of Flash:

• Be careful not to overactive. Most problems come from overactivation.  If the video of the memory is playing when you open the door on the memory, the prisoner is running.  If you are trying to make sense of the memory, the prisoner is running.  If you have distress in your body from the activation, the prisoner is running.  If multiple memories are connecting, the prisoner is running.

In summary, I wanted to introduce the idea that not all forms of distress are equally productive and that it’s the distress in the memory that we want to metabolize and not the distress generated by protective responses against the memory content.

The Folger’s Coffee Can Full of Black Powder metaphor.

Many times, the most efficient ways to process memories is to take a single step/spoon full at a time.  Complete that step/bite.  Take the next.

• 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

Working with Client Parts in Flash Therapy

• In this video, we’re focusing on a system of parts, but that is often only part or only one aspect of what we mean by dissociation.
• Lots of things may become dissociated/disconnected/severed.
• Regardless of the form that dissociation takes, Flash seems ideally suited for the treatment of these issues.
• Best done in the context of normalizing and working with parts effectively outside of Flash
• We want to engage parts because it’s the right thing to do
• In general, clients with identified parts really like Flash, compared to EMDR

Container Selection

• As with any resource, we want to make sure that containment works for all parts. It’s okay for one part to container using a box and another to container using a safe.  We want to think in terms of parallel processes.  Long story short, containment need to work for all parts.

Positive Scene Selection

• Is there a scene or process that all parts can endorse?
• I have clients whose parts appreciate different aspects of the calm scene.  Some parts focus on the sky, others focus on the waves, others focus on the seagulls, etc.
• Or, maybe there is an alternate activity that a part can engage in while most of the parts are focusing on a particular scene.

Target Selection

• Target selection must involve participation of all accessible parts.
• Don’t be surprised if parts that have not had much to say in the past suddenly present with opinions, guidance, cautions, or concerns.
• Asking permission from a place of openness and curiosity is key.
• Be prepared to address concerns of parts, “This part is worried what will happen if we ‘forget’ that memory.”  “This part is worried what will happen if a flashback happens.”  Be prepared to answer questions like this.
• Sometimes parts that appear to be “contrarian,” may grumble about almost any plan.  Often these parts will permit the work to continue, but they may reserve the right to comment on the process if things don’t go as planned.

While Inside Reprocessing in Flash

• We want the see-saw to keep going, but we also want any part to  raise concerns if they appear.
• If any part has relevant information to communicate, we want to hear it out.

More information at: http://FourBlinks.com

More information at: http://FourBlinks.com

More information at: http://FourBlinks.com