Re: Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing
“It was a beautiful example that Karen Lansing was giving yesterday of having used the standard protocol to work with the policemen who were getting the results that Dr. Amen was showing on the brain scans. She used the standard protocol with three additions she added to help access the information that needed to be processed. Her understanding of the police allowed her to put those additions in which would be different from the additions someone might work in with a firefighter, or with a sexual abuse victim, or with a phobia client, or with a substance abuse client…whatever it might be.”
Dr. Francine Shapiro,
Keynote Address at the
2003 EMDR Intl Conference
Transformative Tactical Insights
Content of the Callout:
“The following involved a nighttime “staged callout” by terrorists who wanted to kill officers with an IED preemptively set up under a bridge.
The suspect’s “baiting” vehicle was a cab that alleged RPs were reporting as speeding up and down the main street creating a hazard for the public. Once there, the 2 officers were led on a pursuit out of town with the suspect vehicle then driving the speed limit. They counted 4 males inside.
What save this officer’s life was her gender. This terrorist group knew what negative press comes from killing women. Had her male partner approached the vehicle, this car stop would have had a very different outcome.
Both officers were young in the job. The learning points (see below) this officer gained during EMDR, proved invaluable in future callouts that used this same tactic by bad actors. For this to be accomplished the EMDR therapist must be highly trained and experienced in policing tactics and terrorist tactical methodologies.”
“(Still doing EMDR.)”
CRITICAL TACTICAL LEARNING POINTS can finally surface once the trauma-based memory has been neutralized. This is what’s called “ADAPTIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING.” This also occurs during REM sleep as the brain is working through a problem, or a trauma over time. This enables new learning and / or innovation for the increasing of skills, insight and foresight for future use in the job. Those are the key to “unsticking” the brain from the past and fortifying it for the future. This happens for ALL types of First Responder and Military duty induced traumas that have been worked through with Karen’s augmented4ed EMDR protocol.
As the injuries healed...
"I then attended several sessions with Karen Lansing during which it was decided that I should participate in an EMDR session. The first few times that you recall the incident it’s very traumatic, and you can feel your heart racing and your breathing changing. Towards the end of the session, all of that trauma melts away.
Then near the end of the EMDR set Karen started to ask me questions as I stayed focused on the scene (while still doing EMDR)."
E.G.
• Where have you pulled the car over? (A very bad spot)
• Who’s controlled where both vehicles have stopped? (Them not us)
• Where have you positioned yourself in the car? (I was wide open)
• Where’s the hardcover? (None...they chose to stop on a narrow bridge)
• Where is your colleague? (Oh...)
• Where are you in relation to his arc-of-fire? ... (Potential Blue on Blue)
While Still doing EMDR...
After hearing and answering her questions I viewed the scene objectively (verses emotionally), I soon realized that perhaps we should have considered doing things differently… Not just jumping in straight away when our instincts were telling us something was not right. I saw things I’d never seen that night, or in all of the many times I’d replayed that incident over and over in the months before EMDR.
My whole way of tactical thinking changed...
The client unnamed to maintain confidentiality, paraphrased from a letter sent to a Line Supervisor Used with permission. The EMDR therapeutic model, developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro http://www.emdr.com/shapiro.htm back in the late 1980s, plays a critical role in the protocols I’ve developed for my Police, first Responder and Military client base. For more information Google EMDR. Numerous sites can explain EMDR as a treatment modality. A good place to start is this client-friendly (i.e. sans the psycho-babel) description: http://www.emdrnetwork.org/description.html
“Note:
This was as staged callout with the suspect car being reported as speeding back and forth through as small village and creating a hazard to the public at night.
Once the officers responded they were led on a pursuit at the speed limit by the car that held 4 male occupants in the vehicle. What saved this officer’s life was her gender.
This terrorist group knew what negative press comes from killing women. Had her male partner approached the vehicle this car stop would have had a very different outcome.
Both officers where very young in the job and the learning points that came up proved invaluable in future call outs that used this same tactic by terrorist actors.”
TACTICAL LEARNING POINTS can finally surface once trauma-based memory has been neutralized. This is what’s called “ADAPTIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING” that helps learning to occur and in turn, increases skills and foresight for future use in the job. This is key to “unsticking” the brain from the past and fortifying it for the future. This happens for ALL types First Responder’s, and Military duty-trauma’s that have been worked through with Karen’s augmented EMDR protocol.
The Research
High–Resolution Brain SPECT Imaging and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in Police Officers With PTSD
Karen Lansing, M.F.T, B.C.E.T.S.
Daniel G. Amen, M.D.
Chris Hanks, Ph.D.
Lisa Rudy, B.A.
Images into the Cop’s Mind... During & Post PTSD
J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 17:526-532, November
2005doi: 10.1176/appi.neuropsych.17.4.526 © 2005
http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=102021
Abstract
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing(EMDR) is an effective treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this study, the authors evaluated the effectiveness and physiological effects of EMDR in police officers involved with on-duty shootings and who had PTSD. Six police officers involved with on-duty shootings and subsequent delayed-onset PTSD were evaluated with standard measures, the Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale, and high-resolution brain single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging before and after treatment. All police officers showed clinical improvement and marked reductions in the Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale Score (PDS). In addition, there were decreases in the left and right occipital lobe, left parietal lobe, and right precentral frontal lobe as well as significantly increased perfusion in the left inferior frontal gyrus. In our study EMDR was an effective treatment for PTSD in this police officer group, showing both clinical and brain imaging changes. (The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 2005; 17:526–532)