Trauma Processing

 

Helping First Responders (and others)

find relief from 

difficult memories and images,

often in one session,

and without having to talk about it.

 

sky@stillpointwv.com

304-220-0088

call or text

 

I practice Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)

as well as Motivational Interviewing

and Acceptance Commitment Therapy

to help people process

memories and images from

distressing events

 



I am also available to

help you group, team, or organization

process the immediate effects

of a sudden trauma or loss.

Contact me

 



I am a certified CISM Instructor.

I can help your group build its capacity

to help its members deal effectively with traumatic stress

CISM Training

 



Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) helps people be relieved from the emotional pain associated with images and memories. It is a way to be free from the pain, while still remembering the facts of what happened.

 

Research shows that whenever we recall an emotional memory, that memory becomes open to change.  As a matter of fact, we are always making changes to emotional memories when we recall them, we just didn’t realize that this was happening. Read The Full Article

Now that we know this happens, when it comes to traumatic memory, we can harness this opportunity to purposefully make the changes that will free us from the troubling images and sensations and the emotions that cause suffering.

Add to this, the power of eye movements. It has been known for some time that when clients (through tracking a therapist’s hand or object) moves their eyes back and forth while engaging their thoughts in certain imaginative exercises, the ability to make favorable changes is enhanced, and clients experience relaxation.  While the reason eye movements are so powerfully helpful has not been uncovered, one theory posits that eye movements are thought to replicate the responses experienced during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) phase of sleep.

Keep the Knowledge, Lose the Pain


With ART, the process is very straightforward.  Safely, with the therapist’s reassuring presence, the client undergoes sets of eye movements while silently recalling the traumatic scene. This phase of the ART therapy usually lasts from 30 seconds to about 10 minutes. Physical and emotional reactions are addressed through these sets of relaxing eye movements. This recall causes the window of opportunity to make client selected favorable changes to the traumatic memory to open.

Under the guidance of the ART trained therapist, clients are then empowered with the ability to make any changes they want to the images or other sensory experiences that come up with this memory. After engaging in this process for a relatively short amount of time, (1-5 sessions), positive long-lasting changes are made. While clients retain the ability to recall the facts of the incident(s), they no longer experience the adverse effects that were previously associated with its recall. That is why we say, “Keep the Knowledge, Lose the Pain.” *  * From the ART website, https://acceleratedresolutiontherapy.com/evidence-based/

 

Sky Kershner is an ART trained therapist

 

Contact me

 

 

About ART, Accelerated Resolution Therapy


 

Case Studies

 

ACCELERATED RESOLUTION THERAPY: RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL OF A COMPLICATED GRIEF INTERVENTION

 

BRIEF TREATMENT OF SYMPTOMS OF POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) BY USE OF ACCELERATED RESOLUTION THERAPY (ART®)

 

ART is firmly grounded in techniques used in well-established evidence-based treatments, including exposure through visualization, visualized in-vivo exposure, relaxation/stress inoculation facilitated by eye movements, re-scripting of negative images, Gestalt techniques, and others. * From the ART website, https://acceleratedresolutiontherapy.com/evidence-based/