Dealing with trauma can weigh down your life. It can make it harder to work, feel good in relationships, and just function day-to-day. Many people, including busy professionals, go through the motions every day but feel like they’re barely keeping it together.
Sometimes trauma symptoms are severe enough to meet the diagnosis for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. If you’re still recovering from trauma, you might experience anxiety, panic attacks, and depression.
Often people who are affected by past trauma believe that while they may get a little better, they’ll forever be held back by their past. They might worry they’ll always have symptoms.
Before modern treatments, that may have been true for some. And it may be the case that you’re always affected in some ways by your trauma. However, today most symptoms that interfere in everyday life, such as high anxiety, can get better.
One strategy that works well combines effective modern techniques, leading to an even better method. Accelerated resolution therapy, or ACT, uses strategies from a variety of therapies to address and decrease trauma symptoms as quickly as possible.
How does accelerated resolution therapy work?
One reason people like ACT therapy is that it doesn’t require you to talk about your trauma for multiple therapy sessions. In fact, you don’t have to share any details if you don’t want to.
The therapy is an updated version of several popular techniques, including:
- Eye movements similar to those in EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) treatment
- Talk therapies
- Psychodynamic treatment
ACT is most often compared to EMDR, however, it takes less time and often works faster. That means you can spend less time focused on your difficult memories.
What happens in a session?
When I work with clients, I never pressure anyone to participate in treatment. Clients are always in control of sessions. If you decide to participate in an ACT session, your therapist may ask you to think about an upsetting event you’ve experienced, such as a trauma.
Your therapist will help activate multiple areas of your brain, by having you watch their finger move back and forth as you describe or just think about your bad memory. This is believed to help reprogram your body’s reactions to your trauma.
Your therapist may then ask you to imagine a better version of the story, where something positive instead of disturbing happened. The more instinctual parts of your brain won’t know the difference between the true and imaginary story, so it helps heal your experience.
Benefits of ACT therapy
Unlike more traditional therapies that can take months to work through trauma, ACT starts working within a few sessions. This makes it a promising and exciting new way to address trauma and PTSD (Kip, et al., 2013).
There are many reasons people choose to try accelerated resolution therapy. Here are some examples:
- Faster results compared to other trauma treatments
- Decreased panic attacks or anxiety spells
- Feeling more relaxed and peaceful
- Fewer symptoms of depression
- More positive feelings about the future
Are you looking for accelerated resolution therapy near you?
I’m a coach and therapist based in Connecticut and I offer accelerated resolution therapy and other treatments for busy professionals. I’ve seen the quick benefits from ACT and it’s one of my preferred ways to help people work through trauma.
If you’d like to learn more I’d be happy to hear from you. To get started, schedule a free consultation.
Source
Kip K., et al. (2013). Brief Treatment of Co-Occurring Post-Traumatic Stress and Depressive Symptoms by Use of Accelerated Resolution Therapy, Frontiers in Psychiatry.
