HOW DOES RAPID EYE TECHNOLOGY RELEASE EMOTIONAL TRAUMA?

During a session of Rapid Eye, the client blinks rapidly.  The technician moves an eye-directing device in front of the client.  The client experiences a relaxed or alpha state.  This process indicates to your body that REM sleep is happening, even though you are in an aware state.  The technician directs the client to look in all directions to access different areas of the mind, i.e. memory, verbal, etc. along the neural linguistic pathways, where we have processed experiences and stored information.  Verbal cues are used to assist the client in releasing.  The techniques in Rapid Eye Technology are designed with the purpose to simulate this natural way of processing emotion and memory, therefore unlocking the stored painful memories, and releasing the emotional charge connected to them.

As humans, our eyes do many things.  They open and close, blink, move in different directions, and even tear up.  All of this activity is controlled in the center of the brain by the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN), which is attached to the Limbic System, the emotional part of the brain.  When you see something with your eyes, it gets processed by the emotional part of you, the Limbic System.  Then is passed to the rest of the brain for processing.  You are never really looking at what you see.  You are always looking and feeling about what you see.  Also, because your eyes are connected to this place in the limbic system, when you have an emotion about something, it shows through your eyes.  The eyes will blink more rapidly, tear up, look certain directions, or the pupil can change.  

During an RET session, the client is rapidly blinking.  This fires up the emotional part of your brain.  By doing so, we can call up memories, by giving verbal input, giving these memories a name.  This verbal input is picked up by the auditory part of the brain, which is connected to the same area in the limbic system before being processed in the rest of the brain.  We hear and feel about things at the same time.  In RET sessions, the blinking turns on the emotional parts of us, we then give those parts a name, to see and to hear, and to release.  All of which is part of our natural discharge mechanism.  And this cleansing of the emotional input of our experiences is what our brain is doing every time we are in R.E.M. sleep. (Joseph Bennette - Introduction to Rapid Eye Technology video)

Additional Credits:

Bruce Ecker, M.A., L.M.F.T., is codirector of the Coherence Psychology Institute and coauthor with Laurel Hulley, M.A., of Depth Oriented Brief Therapy: How To Be Brief When You Were Trained To Be Deep, and Vice Versa. Ecker and Hulley are the originators of Coherence Therapy and coauthors with Robin Ticic ofUnlocking the Emotional Brain: Eliminating Symptoms at their Roots Using Memory Reconsolidation. Contact:bruce.ecker@coherenceinstitute.org.

Robin Ticic, B.A., H.P. Psychotherapy (Germany), is the Coherence Psychology Institute’s director of training, a trauma therapist associated with the University of Cologne, and author of How to Connect with Your Child. Contact: robin.ticic@coherenceinstitute.org.

Laurel Hulley, M.A., is the Coherence Psychology Institute’s director of paradigm development, cofounder of the Julia Morgan Middle School for Girls in Oakland, California, and coauthor with Bruce Ecker of the Coherence Therapy Practice Manual & Training Guide.

The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. Joseph E. LeDoux. Simon & Schuster, 1998. 

Candace Pert Phd., Molecules of Emotion

Caroline Myss Phd., Anatomy of the Spirit

Photo courtesy of C.R. O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA