Accelerated Resolution Therapy®

Accelerated Resolution Therapy® (ART) is an evidence-based trauma processing treatment that focuses on reducing the body’s activation level associated with distressing memories and events.  ART’s unique approach utilizes bilateral stimulation via eye movements to ultimately isolate painful experiences from your body’s flight or fight response– reprocessing troubling memories in a way that reduces emotional pain while preserving the facts of what happened. This is an especially effective intervention that can help when feeling stuck in talk therapy, coping skills help but aren’t healing the root cause, or there’s motivation to address a traumatic experience, whether attachment based or single incident trauma.

Trauma and stress manifest in so many ways that affect our minds and bodies. Although it’s an undeniable part of life, triggers that disrupt your day-to-day pose a serious hurdle to your attempts to move on from distressing memories, intrusive thoughts, or even nightmares. When you come to Resilient Self Therapy for a sense of freedom from those triggers, we offer a brief, structured technique to help you: Accelerated Resolution Therapy®

Many people experience relief after only one session of ART and report feeling less activated, able to do things in their life that they’ve previously avoided, and/or a deeper sense of resolve than experienced ever before from talk therapy alone.

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Recognizing the need for Accelerated Resolution Therapy®

Here are some examples of issues that have been quickly and effectively treated by ART:

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  • Birth Trauma

  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

  • Anxiety and Depression

  • Car Accidents

  • Fear of flying, needles, social situation

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

  • Grief

  • Attachment Wounds

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The ART Approach

ART’s goal is to change the way that traumatic experiences are actually stored in the brain’s limbic system. It bipasses the prefrontal cortex by the use of bilateral stimulation via horizontal eye movements (similar to the way our eyes move while we dream), as well as guided image replacement and sensation processing. A 60-90-minute session of ART can regulate and adjust bodily responses to painful memories, with a lasting effect. It works in the place where the stress gets stuck, not just the surface where the symptoms show up. 

Sarah, who is Master Certified in ART will guide you through step-by-step, manualized protocols where you’re in control of what you’d like to target and how much you share about your trauma. For many, recounting your pain in detail aloud can contribute further to your distress, and what’s unique about ART is that it does not require the client to do so.

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Common Questions about Accelerated Resolution Therapy®

ART works through a process called memory reconsolidation, which helps your brain change the way painful memories are stored. During guided eye movements, you’ll intentionally replace distressing images with new, calm, or positive images. This pairing helps the nervous system feel safe enough to respond differently.  Your factual memory remains, but the negative emotional and physical reactions are eliminated. At Resilient Self Therapy, ART can be offered in person in our Kingston, NY office, our Union Square office, or via telehealth to NY State residents.

Many trauma therapies—like EMDR, Prolonged Exposure, or Cognitive Processing Therapy—can require several months of sessions. ART uses a structured protocol that allows meaningful change to occur in much fewer sessions, often within one to five visits. It also emphasizes client control and avoids prolonged reliving of trauma– you can process your memories privately, while we guide you through the steps.

While nothing specific is required to prep for an ART session, it can help to connect with what’s motivating you to feel differently about the issue you’d like to target.  In some respects, it’s enough to just show up with an open mind.  You don’t even have to recall the details of a traumatic experience. Your brain knows how to make the changes.

To learn more about Accelerated Resolution Therapy, visit the official ART website.

ART is a fantastic adjunctive treatment to ongoing talk therapy!  Clinical indications for a referral could be when a client (and/or sometimes you as their therapist) is feeling stuck.  Perhaps the coping skills and insights that you’ve helped them with are starting to feel insufficient in reaching the fuller extent of change that they’re seeking.  Other instances may be when deeper trauma processing work is needed, a phobia is preventing them from reaching a goal, and/or a client has an interest in doing more interoceptive work.  We love collaborating with the client’s primary therapist on short term ART work and invite you to reach out with any questions regarding the specifics of a potential referral.

While everyone is different, research and clinical reports suggest that ART’s effects are long-lasting. Once the brain has reprocessed a distressing memory, the emotional and physical reactivity tied to those memories are typically resolved. ART is meant to help you avoid constantly re-telling your traumas, and we’re here to ensure that the pace and focus of your ART session(s) gives you a real sense of comfort and safety that stays with you long after you walk out of your session.

“The most difficult aspect of discussing ART is the fact that it sounds too good to be true.”

— Laney Rosenzweig, founder of ART

You deserve real relief, with therapy that helps your past stop intruding on your present.

Give us a call or book a free 15 min consultation to see how ART can help.

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Accelerated Resolution Therapy® and ART® are registered service marks of the Rosenzweig Center for Rapid Recovery (RCRR), used with permission.