The Use of Eye Movement Therapy to Tackle Intolerance

Here are the major points I’ve made in previous blogs:

… The early learning experiences from parents and significant others that teach us to overuse “the suspicious eye” – the brain’s survival reflex that mistakes a stick for a rattlesnake - can add fuel to the fire of an aversion to differences.

… If we took ten people who stated openly - “I just don’t particularly care for people from that country” – and measured their brain-body reactions when talking about “those people”, we would find that their fight-flight response was activated at some level, from mild to extreme arousal.

… Stressful events are stored in the emotional centers of the brain, and influence unconscious feelings and automatic reactions in adulthood. It helps answer the question: Why is it so tough to embrace our differences?

… When a negative memory and focused attention to eye movements occur together, the dual stimulation seems to weaken the negative memory. This neural pathway to therapeutic success is one of several theories that are currently being investigated to help explain the rapid success of eye movement therapy.

Can the information summarized above help in the fight to reduce intolerance and embrace diversity? If we transfer the positive results in the last 20 years in stress and trauma reduction (scientifically validated in the EMDR journal) to the areas of bullying, ethnic and sexual intolerance, the possibilities become exciting, particularly for a stress expert like me. Let’s take the example of bullying.

Consider these alarming facts.

…Children and youth in the U.S. are teased and tormented by bullies to the extent that 160,000 students skip school each day (Olweus, 1993).

…86 % of children and youth ages 12-15 said they get teased or bullied at school, making bullying more prevalent than smoking, alcohol, drugs and sex among this age group (Kaiser Foundation, Nickelodeon TV Network and Children Now, 2001).

…The most common forms of bullying are related to physical appearance, disabilities, perceived sexual orientation or gender expression (Survey, 2008). 31 % of gay youth get threatened or injured at school in one year (Bart, 1998).

Bullying is not limited to the U.S. but occurs in countries throughout the world. The most disturbing fact is provided by the course authors who reviewed the studies cited above: “…the common thread in all countries is that children are relentlessly and repeatedly bullied without significant objections or outrage from responsible adults.” (Elite Continuing Education)

Clearly, we need to help children and youth who have been victims of intimidation with every therapy method available. To make a dramatic inroad into this problem, we need to treat the children and youth who are the perpetrators of bullying. And we need to get to them as early as possible. My expertise is primarily with adults, but many EMDR trained therapists, thousands of them, are child experts. They have used their technology very effectively to work with child trauma, stress and anxiety issues, and a host of other problems. The technology is available to apply an eye movement desensitization approach in an early intervention program for children and youth who show bullying and intimidation tendencies.

In order to accomplish this goal, we need a bit of “outrage from responsible adults”: teacher, parents, administrators, government officials, physicians and mental health workers.

This is just one example of how we can get started in making inroads to the rampant problem of intolerance. I hope to discuss other ways in future blogs. Visit www.drparrino.com for more on EMDR and other relaxation and desensitization technologies.

Intolerance and Reprocessing Bad Memories

I think we can all agree that intolerance is getting worse in our country and perhaps is spreading like an epidemic. A recent AP poll has found that racism has actually increased in this country in the last four years since we’ve had an African-American president. The same poll found that negative attitudes towards Hispanics has increased as well. Bullying in our schools and neighborhoods is more rampant than ever. Kids who are diverse in any way – disabled, homosexual and those of a different ethnic origin – are reporting more incidents of harassment than ever. There are certainly numerous causes for this increase in intolerance towards diversity, but as a stress expert, I want to explore the role of stress and unprocessed memories in this etiology of intolerance. And, most importantly, these questions: Is there something that can be done about this growing problem? Do mental health professionals have a technology that can help?

To gain a basic understanding of what happens during stress and trauma, consider this scenario: A child is surrounded by the security of his home environment.  Suddenly, the serenity is shattered by the frightening sounds of mom and dad fighting. The child’s two heroes, the only dependable sources of security in his life, are having a knock-down-drag-out.  This scares and overwhelms the child, and his reflexive emotional reactions are fear and anxiety. His heart pounds and breathing is rapid. He wants to flee, to retreat to a safe place, but there is nowhere to hide.

Luckily, the fighting subsides and mom and dad approach their child to soothe his frazzled nerves: "It's just a little disagreement honey. Everything is okay." This nurturing is helpful, and for the moment, he can let go of the trauma.  But the brain has an important job to do: It stores this fear-provoking experience in a memory network that’s coded “dangerous altercations".

Imagine the multitude of times this danger signal becomes activated in childhood.  After years of labeling, storing and coping with stress, our brains have developed numerous networks of memories to remind, prepare and protect us from future threats.  And there are billions of brain cells devoted to this task.

As adults, relationship conflict may trigger the activation of this same neural network and avoidance/flight becomes the norm. The distinction between past and present threat is blurred. As far as our brains are concerned, we are still in danger and escape may be our only mode of survival.

            In a case of chronic conflict avoidance, a therapist who practices EMDR therapy (mentioned in an earlier blog) encourages the individual to call up and hold the threatening memory while focusing on a compelling stimulus (a finger moving rapidly in front of his\her eyes)? The dual task – paying attention and calling up a memory – is inherently difficult for the brain. And, when memory and focused attention occur together, the dual stimulation seems to weaken the negative memory. This neural pathway to therapeutic success is one of several theories that are currently being investigated to help explain the rapid success of eye movement therapy.

A dual attention task like eye movements, when used by a qualified clinician as part of a comprehensive, eight step treatment plan, speeds up the process of change.  Every facet of therapy is accelerated: insight into problems, connecting past to present, the release of powerful emotions, relaxation and behavior change.

The eye movements (and other dual attention maneuvers developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro) have a way of breaking into the neural network of the brain that holds dysfunctional memories.  Once the clinician breaks into the network, the data spring to life.  And when this "release" takes place, resolution is not far behind. According to Shapiro, the memory has been successfully reprocessed.

            In my next blog, I will discuss the potential use of EMDR therapy to tackle the growing problem of intolerance. Visit my blog, www.drparrino.com, to read my article on this fascinating procedure: Stress Relief Benefits of Reprocessing Bad Memories.

Stress and Prejudice: The Role of Memory in Triggering Intolerance

Consider the following fabricated scenario: As a child, you repeatedly experienced your mom and dad fighting over money.  The greenbacks were scarce in those days and major expenditures created stress, tension and conflict. You grow up motivated to develop your own business and, due to skill and a little bit of luck, you become successful beyond your wildest dreams. You are now wealthy and the green stuff is no longer a scarcity in your life. This should enable you to relax about money and prevent it from being a source of stress, tension and conflict with your spouse. Right? Well, not exactly. Let me tell you why.

The memory of repeated arguments about money are stored in various parts of your brain – particularly the emotional centers – that continue to get aggravated when dealing with major expenditures, even though the common sense, logical brain can say: “Hey, why worry? I’m incredibly rich!” This phenomenon of the “worried rich” is due to what’s called “unprocessed memory”. In a nutshell, your brain is very sensitive about being poor when you were a vulnerable kid. The emotional centers still compel you to believe that spending significant amounts of money is a threatening experience.

Unprocessed memories cause problems in many facets of our lives. Because these memories are connected to the fight-flight response, they tend to override the logical, thinking process of our brains. If there is a perceived threat in our environments, the emotional brain usurps our ability to use common sense. The brain automatically thinks: “This is a matter of survival. Forget logic, let’s send out the troupes”.

This research on stressful and traumatic early memories  - and how they continue to haunt us into adulthood - has been spearheaded by a brilliant Psychologist, Dr. Francine Shapiro, the originator of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a therapy procedure that treats unprocessed memories.  I will write about EMDR in future blogs. For now, it is important to use Dr. Shapiro’s work to help make the connection between memories and intolerance.

Once again, consider the fabricate scenario - your early stressful experience with mom, dad and money. This time, however, substitute greenbacks with tension and conflict over the ‘foreigners’ who moved next door to you when you were eight years old. Mom wanted to befriend them, make them feel welcome in the neighborhood, but dad objected violently to this idea. They fought over this issue repeatedly, and mom finally gave in to dad’s knee-jerk, stereotyped ideas about them, which he learned in his family of origin.

Unless you experienced a major desensitizing experience with these ‘foreigners’ during childhood - like befriending and having fun with their children - you would be prone to shy away from this group, perhaps even, like dad, find yourself with an angry aversion to them as an adult. This is one way that unprocessed memories lead to intolerance of others. These stressful events are stored in the emotional centers of your brain, and influence unconscious feelings and automatic reactions in adulthood. It helps answer the question: Why is it so tough to embrace our differences? My next blog will focus on one potential solution to the issue of intolerance. Visit www.drparrino.com, for more info on stress and memory.

Stress and Prejudice: The Fight-Flight Response

By now, everyone is familiar with the fight-flight response; that internal, brain-body reaction that occurs when we become afraid (flight) and angry (fight). It also occurs in more subtle ways when we become timid (flight) and defensive (fight). It’s the brain’s way of alerting us to a threat in the environment so that we can prepare to tangle with the danger or get the heck away from it. And this reflex - with all of its accompanying adrenalin rush - is often present when you don’t want or need it: giving a speech or trying to have an important talk with your spouse about the state of the “union”. 

T he stress reaction can leap out of nowhere: a current situation in your life taps an unconscious memory that makes you feel queasy. Your body is giving you a distress  signal that - once upon a time - this stranger you’re talking to reminds you of a guy/gal who bullied you in high school. You experience the feelings but not the bad memory that’s connected to him/her. You don’t know why but there’s an instant  dislike and aversion to this person. 

If we took ten people who stated openly - “I just don’t particularly care for people from that country” – and measured their brain-body reactions when talking about “those people”, we would find that their fight-flight response was activated at some level, from mild to extreme arousal. They might say, when asked about the origins of this dislike: “I don’t know, It’s just a gut feeling.” IF we investigated this response further, we would likely find some aversive memory associated with this automatic dislike that the group of ten was not aware of. This “memory factor” will be the subject of my next blog. For more info about stress and its effect on our lives, visit my website at www.drparrino.com.