"Keep The Knowledge. Lose The Pain."
What Is Accelerated Resolution Therapy?
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a solution focused treatment approach that uses eye movements combined with guided voluntary image replacement in order to provide relief from distressing symptoms and sensations.
Similar to EMDR, it works to tap into your limbic system to desensitize and reprocess disturbing sensations and emotions to replace them with more helpful or neutral ones.
ART is able to access areas of the brain that standard talk therapy isn’t able to access.
ART is used to treat children, teens and adults with trauma, grief, depression, anxiety, panic, eating disorders, substance use and phobias. There is a wide body of research that shows ART is effective for many mental and physical health conditions.
ART does’t remove memories or knowledge (“Keep the Knowledge”), but it allows you to access them without experiencing distress (“Lose the Pain”).
An ART session is very different from a standard talk-therapy session. ART is structured and guided, and runs a little longer than a standard therapy session at 60 minutes. We follow the treatment protocol throughout the session by alternating between visualizing the distress and processing out the emotions that come up. This is done through guided eye movements.
The biggest difference in ART sessions is that there isn’t a whole lot of talking! ART does not require you to talk about your distress, rather you are just visualizing and experiencing it. This is especially beneficial for folks who are not ready to discuss the details of their trauma.
Because your brain has been processing, we recommend taking it easy for the rest of the day following your ART session.
ART is a short-term, evidenced-based practice that can provide relief in as little as 1-2 sessions. Often times, folks will have one session and feel relief within hours.
Depending on the complexities, duration of distress, and individual circumstances; some folks will need further sessions.
If you are struggling with:
- Intrusive, repetitive memories about unpleasant or traumatic experiences
- Re-experiencing of sensations related to traumatic experiences
- Distress around triggers–people, places, things that remind you of difficult memories or situations
- Strong physical sensations that cause you distress
ART may be able to help you heal and find relief faster than traditional treatment models.
Not a problem! ART is often done in conjunction with talk therapy, not in place of it.
Similar to EMDR and Somatic Experiencing, many folks add ART in addition to their existing therapy. You don’t need to switch therapists or terminate treatment with your providers to do ART. Often times, we will collaborate with your primary therapist during treatment to ensure that we are able to provide you with the best possible care.
Both Diane and Sabrina are ART trained therapists and able to provide treatment. If you are interested in starting ART, you can get in touch with us by phone or email to request a consultation for ART treatment. Based on scheduling and availability, we will determine which therapist will be able to work with you.
Before starting treatment, you must have two full individual sessions first. This will allow us to complete a full assessment for symptoms, history, current level of functioning, and risk. Because ART is trauma processing, it is important that folks are able to use coping skills and resources to maintain stability and safety.
You can read more about ART here: www.artworksnow.com
An awesome TedTalk with an ART session demonstration here!
And we are more happy to provide additional information or answer questions about ART, so feel free to get in touch!
For more information or to schedule a consultation:
Please Note:
Electronic communication, including email, is not a secure method of communication and their is some risk that one’s confidentiality could be compromised with its use.
While we do our best to prevent this with encryption, firewall, and antivirus software on all of our devices–the remote risk remains.
If you are not comfortable with this, please feel free to call us at 914-440-0402 and leave a message on our confidential voicemail.
We cannot provide clinical advice or therapy during email or phone consultations. Those services are only available once a client/therapist relationship has been established.