The survivor of a vicious gang-rape whilst at university in Belfast, Maria Clyne, says this technique from the Human Givens psychotherapeutic persepective is one of the most effective treatment that she has experienced herself for trauma & Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]. Here is how she describes it
" I thought I had 'got over' my experience of having my drink spiked and being gang-raped, beaten and left for dead. But I hadn't really.Even though I had vague memories the trauma of it was replayed everytime I read a story or saw a news report about rape. I didn't report it to the police thinking they wouldn't believe me. This technique is truly miraculous in that I felt like a totally different person afterwards - free . It is safe, fast and best of all non-voyeuristic ie you don't have to describe the event/s to the therapist'
She offers this technique to both male and female SURVIVORS of rape - be it date-rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment.
The Rewind Technique
How it works
The rewind technique, also known as the fast phobia cure, evolved from the technique developed by Richard Bandler one of the co-founders of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). He called it the VK dissociation technique (the V stands for visual and the K for kinaesthetic — feelings). The version recommended by the European Therapy Studies Institute has been refined and streamlined, as a result of its own research into why and how best it works.[2] It is highly useful for individuals who, after exposure to traumatic events, have developed PTSD or lesser forms of the condition. Simply described, the technique works by allowing the traumatised individual, whilst in a safe relaxed state, to reprocess the traumatic memory so that it becomes stored as an 'ordinary', albeit unpleasant, and non- threatening memory rather than one that continually activates a terror response. This is achieved by enabling the memory to be shifted in the brain from the amygdala to the neocortex.
The amygdala's role is to alert us to danger and stimulate the body's 'fight or fight' reaction. Normally, all initial sensations associated with a threatening experience are passed to the amygdala and formed into a sensory memory, which in turn is passed on to the hippocampus and from there to the neocortex where it is translated into a verbal or narrative memory and stored. When an event appears life-threatening, however, there can be sudden information overload and the sensory memories stay trapped in the amygdala instead of being passed on to, and made sense of by, the neocortex. While trapped in the amygdala, the trauma memory has no identifiable meaning. It cannot be described, only re-experienced in some sensory form, such as panic attacks or flashbacks. The rewind technique allows that sensory memory to be converted into narrative, and be put into perspective.
http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/rewindevidence.htm