Traumatic Incident Reduction (eBook)

Research and Results

Victor R. Volkman (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2005
128 Seiten
Loving Healing Press (Verlag)
978-1-61599-316-1 (ISBN)

Infos

'When accessed with the specific cognitive imagery procedure of TIR, a primary traumatic incident can be stripped of its emotional charge permitting its embedded cognitive components to be revealed and restructured. With its emotional impact depleted and its irrational ideation revised, the memory of a traumatic incident becomes innocuous and thereafter remains permanently incapable of restimulation and intrusion into present time.' --Robert H. Moore, Ph.D.
Traumatic Incident Reduction: Research & Results provides synopses of several TIR research projects from 1994 to 2004. Each article, in the researcher's own words, provides new insights into the effectiveness of Traumatic Incident Reduction. The three doctoral dissertation level studies that form the core of this book investigate the results of TIR outcomes with crime victims, incarcerated females, and anxiety and panic disorders respectively (Bisbey, Valentine, and Coughlin).
Both informal and formal reports of the 'Active Ingredient' study by Charles R. Figley and Joyce Carbonell of Florida State University show how TIR stacks up against other brief treatments for traumatic stress, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) et al.
A further case study by Teresa Descilo, MSW informs of outcomes from an ongoing project to provide help to at-risk middle-school students in an inner-city setting.
An introduction by Robert H. Moore, Ph.D. provides background into how TIR provides relief for symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and firmly establishes the roots of TIR in the traditions of desensitization, imaginal flooding, and Rogerian techniques.
This book contains the most detailed list of Traumatic Incident Reduction and Metapsychology resources yet published. This appendix includes references to dissertations, books, selected journal articles, AMI/TIRA newsletter compendium, web resources, and the TIR and Metapsychology lecture series (audio). Includes index.
'We are very impressed with the power and simplicity of TIR in helping trauma sufferers work through their frightening experiences and find great relief.'
- Charles R. Figley, Ph.D., editor of TRAUMATOLOGY
'Being able to watch someone go from confusion to certainty, from sadness to happiness in a single session is a wonderful privilege. It is invigorating. I get the same satisfaction and joy from teaching Metapsychology techniques to others.'
- Lori Beth Bisbey, Ph.D., Chartered Counselling Psychologist
'TIR does not require years of collegiate study to pre-qualify the provision of assistance to others. The efficacy of TIR is not contingent on the unique talents of a particular facilitator. The procedure is standardized and does not require continuous adjustments.'
- Wendy Coughlin, Ph.D.
Learn more at www.TIRA.org

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"e;When accessed with the specific cognitive imagery procedure of TIR, a primary traumatic incident can be stripped of its emotional charge permitting its embedded cognitive components to be revealed and restructured. With its emotional impact depleted and its irrational ideation revised, the memory of a traumatic incident becomes innocuous and thereafter remains permanently incapable of restimulation and intrusion into present time."e; --Robert H. Moore, Ph.D. Traumatic Incident Reduction: Research & Results provides synopses of several TIR research projects from 1994 to 2004. Each article, in the researcher's own words, provides new insights into the effectiveness of Traumatic Incident Reduction. The three doctoral dissertation level studies that form the core of this book investigate the results of TIR outcomes with crime victims, incarcerated females, and anxiety and panic disorders respectively (Bisbey, Valentine, and Coughlin). Both informal and formal reports of the "e;Active Ingredient"e; study by Charles R. Figley and Joyce Carbonell of Florida State University show how TIR stacks up against other brief treatments for traumatic stress, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) et al. A further case study by Teresa Descilo, MSW informs of outcomes from an ongoing project to provide help to at-risk middle-school students in an inner-city setting. An introduction by Robert H. Moore, Ph.D. provides background into how TIR provides relief for symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and firmly establishes the roots of TIR in the traditions of desensitization, imaginal flooding, and Rogerian techniques. This book contains the most detailed list of Traumatic Incident Reduction and Metapsychology resources yet published. This appendix includes references to dissertations, books, selected journal articles, AMI/TIRA newsletter compendium, web resources, and the TIR and Metapsychology lecture series (audio). Includes index. "e;We are very impressed with the power and simplicity of TIR in helping trauma sufferers work through their frightening experiences and find great relief."e; - Charles R. Figley, Ph.D., editor of TRAUMATOLOGY "e;Being able to watch someone go from confusion to certainty, from sadness to happiness in a single session is a wonderful privilege. It is invigorating. I get the same satisfaction and joy from teaching Metapsychology techniques to others."e; - Lori Beth Bisbey, Ph.D., Chartered Counselling Psychologist "e;TIR does not require years of collegiate study to pre-qualify the provision of assistance to others. The efficacy of TIR is not contingent on the unique talents of a particular facilitator. The procedure is standardized and does not require continuous adjustments."e; - Wendy Coughlin, Ph.D. Learn more at www.TIRA.org

Textauszug

Psychological Foundations of TIR
By Robert H. Moore, Ph.D.

Introduction

Developed by Frank A. Gerbode, M.D. TIR is a regressive desensitization procedure for reducing or eliminating the negative residual impact of traumatic experience. As such it finds major application in cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A one-on-one guided imagery process, TIR is also useful in remediation of specific unwanted stress responses, such as panic attacks, that occur without significant provocation. “Thematic TIR” traces such conditioned responses back through the history of their occurrence in a client’s life to the stressful incidents primarily responsible for their acquisition. The resolution of the primary incidents then reduces or eliminates the target stress response.

As an intervention technique, TIR is both directive and client-centered. It is directive in that the therapist who is called a “facilitator” guides the client who is called a “viewer” repetitively through an imaginal replay of a specific trauma. It is client—or, as Dr. Gerbode prefers, “person-” - centered, in that a TIR facilitator doesn’t interpret or critique the viewer’s experience or tell him how he should feel or what to think about it. A methodical and systematic anamnesis, TIR unsuppresses the trauma being addressed to provide the viewer the opportunity to review and revise his perspective on it. TIR’s uniqueness lies, in part, in the fact that a session continues until the viewer is completely relieved of whatever stress the target trauma originally provoked and any cognitive distortions (e.g., observations, decisions, conclusions) embedded within the incident have been restructured. (Gerbode, 1989)

TIR’s Philosophic Roots

TIR and virtually every other contemporary regressive and imaginal desensitization procedure used in the remediation of trauma—including “sequential analysis” (Blundell and Cade), “direct therapeutic exposure” (Boudewyns), “prolonged imaginal exposure” (Foa and Olasov), “gradual dosing” (Horowitz), “dianetics” (Hubbard), “flooding” (Keane and Kaloupek), “repetitive review” (Raimy), and “implosion” (Stampfl and Lewis)—derive directly from principles clearly articulated in the earliest writings of Freud and Pavlov. Although the latter, Pavlov, is properly credited with the identification of the “conditional reflex” and its chain-linked “secondary signaling system” (the model most commonly referenced in connection with PTSD acquisition), Freud earlier had made the equivalent observation about the development of the traumatic neuroses. He wrote:

What left the symptom behind was not always a single experience. On the contrary, the result was usually brought about by the convergence of several traumas, and often by the repetition of a great number of similar ones. Thus it was necessary to reproduce the whole chain of pathogenic memories in chronologic order, or rather in reversed order, the latest ones first and the earliest ones last. (1984, p. 37)

The essential congruity of the Pavlovian and Freudian observations, in this connection, prompted Astrup (1965) to note that:

From a conditional reflex point of view, psychoanalytic therapy represents a continuous association experiment with subtle analysis of second signaling system connections... (p. 126)

As TIR draws heavily on these same well-established principles, Dr. Gerbode, who was originally schooled in psychoanalysis, and Dr. Robert H. Moore—a cognitive-behaviorist colleague, and author of these notes—routinely reference this intersection of the Freudian and Pavlovian constructs in presentations of TIR to the mental health professions.

PTSD And Imaginal Procedures

Whether favoring the remedial logic of “abreaction“ or of “extinction,” dedicated trauma workers display a strong and growing philosophic and clinical consensus regarding the importance of addressing traumatic experience with a guided imagery procedure like that employed by TIR.

In their review of theoretical and empirical issues in the treatment of PTSD, Fairbank and Nicholson (1987) conclude that, of all the approaches in use, only those involving some form of direct imaginal exposure to the trauma have been successful.

Roth and Newman (1991) describe the ideal resolution process as one involving “a re-experiencing of the affect associated with the trauma in the context of painful memories.” Such a process, the authors point out, brings the individual “to both an emotional and cognitive understanding of the meaning of the trauma and the impact it has had...and would lead to a reduction in symptoms and to successful integration of the trauma experience” (p. 281).

Grossberg and Wilson (1968) have shown that repeated visualization of a fearful situation produces a significant drop in the physiological response (GSR) to the threatening image.

Folkins, Lawson, Opton, and Lazarus (1968) have demonstrated the efficacy of rehearsal in fantasy in reducing the physiological response (GSR) to a frightening movie.

Blundell and Cade (1980) independently confirm that repeated visualization of an anxiety-provoking situation produces a significant reduction in the physiological (GSR) response to the threatening image. Frederick (1986) used a very TIR-like desensitization procedure with trauma victims:

He contended that such incident-specific treatment is essential to overcoming PTSD. Using mental images, the client reviews, frame by frame, the entire sequence of the traumatic experience. During the process, the client is able to recall and disclose significant thoughts and feelings related to the trauma and, consequently, anxiety associated with the trauma dissipates. (Hayman, Sommers-Flanagan, and Parsons, 1987)

R. D. Laing concurs:

You can look at it with such narcissistic bonding as to bring tears to your eyes, or grimaces of distaste at what you see. After each paroxysm of self-pity or self-disgust or self-adulation, look at it again and again, and again until those tears are dry, the laughter has subsided, the sobs have ceased. Then look at it, quite dispassionately ...until you’ve got nothing to do with it at all. (Russell and Laing, 1992)

Some trauma therapists employ hypnosis as an accessing tool. Although this is not the case in TIR, it is interesting to note the similarity of the hypnotic and non-hypnotic approaches to resolution, once the client has contacted and begun to unsuppress a traumatic incident.

The Ericksonian procedure for addressing the content of a traumatic incident employs a trance state. Following hypnotic induction, his retrospective “jigsaw” technique guides the client in recovery of the cognitive and emotive components of a painful memory in whatever order the client can most easily confront:

Various bits of the incident recovered in this jigsaw fashion allow you to eventually recover an entire, forgotten traumatic experience of childhood that had been governing this person’s behavior...and handicapping his life very seriously. (Erickson, 1955/80)

MacHovec (1985) confirms that hypnotic regression can be used to help clients recall and revivify a traumatic incident, vent emotions, and gradually reintegrate the experience with improved coping skills.

PTSD And Cognitive Restructuring

Like other effective trauma resolution processes, TIR is not primarily a cathartic technique. Gerbode (1986) affirms the professional consensus that cognitive restructuring is prerequisite for thorough trauma resolution. Raimy (1975) concurs:

Many current therapies attempt primarily to relieve the client or patient of his pent-up emotion, either in cathartic episodes or over longer periods of time in which emotional release takes place less dramatically. If we examine catharsis more closely, however, we can readily discover several cognitive events which have significant influence on the experience. If these cognitive events do not occur, no amount of “emotional expression” is likely to be helpful (p. 81).

Speaking specifically to the use of imaginal exposure in the rational-emotive treatment of PTSD, Warren and Zgourides (1991) report that:

Keane et al’s (1989) implosive therapy, Horowitz’s (1986) gradual dosing, and Foa and Olasov’s (1987) prolonged imaginal exposure are methods that help clients work through their traumatic event, discover and revise meanings, and develop more adaptive responses to the traumatic event. In RET [Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy], we incorporate imaginal exposure to the traumatic event.. (and).. While conducting the imaginal exposure and in reviewing imagined and behavioral exposure homework assignments, we are on the lookout for clients’ cognitive and emotional reprocessing of the trauma that may relate to the issues of meaning of the event, shattered assumptions, irrational beliefs, and so on. (p. 161)

Beck (1970) lends additional support to the importance of cognitive restructuring during what he calls “rehearsals in fantasy” in his observation that:

When a patient has an unpleasant affect associated with a particular situation, the unpleasant affect may sometimes be eliminated or reduced with repeated imagining of the situation even though the content of the fantasy does not change. The...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.12.2005
• Reihe/Serie: Explorations in Metapsychology
• Reihe/Serie: Explorations in Metapsychology
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Humanistische Psychotherapien
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Persönlichkeitsstörungen
• Schlagworte: Anxiety • Counseling • Humanism • movements • Panic • Post-traumatic stress disorder • Psychology • psychopathology • psychotherapy • PTSD • Trauma
• ISBN-10: 1-61599-316-9 / 1615993169
• ISBN-13: 978-1-61599-316-1 / 9781615993161