Flash is barely a decade old and already there’s a next generation of it. Well, maybe. Here’s the deal.
Thomas Zimmerman, who has been teaching his version of Flash for years, just came out with a book: Predictive Processing Flash. It’s primarily a treatment manual, and it reflects Zimmerman’s deep experience both with doing Flash with clients, and teaching it to other therapists. He’s got handy little metaphors for explaining things. Simple, scripted interventions at every step. He tells you what will go wrong and what to do about it. It’s obvious that he knows his way around.
What makes this more than just a treatment manual is the guiding theory: current neuroscience’s understanding of the brain as organized around a) predicting/anticipating every experience, and then b) evaluating incoming data as either confirming or disconfirming the prediction. If the prediction is disconfirmed, the brain has to adjust its model in some way.
Consistent with the memory reconsolidation account, in the predictive processing model, trauma healing is conceptualized as occurring as a result of mismatch between a person’s anticipated experience of recalling the trauma memory, vs. their actual experience. This mismatch disconfirms how the memory has been held and understood, and leads to transformation of the memory.
Mismatches can occur in many ways, which may be why various methods can achieve the same outcome. For example, during EMDR the mismatch can occur by a client free-associating to bring in contradictory evidence (such as being safe now, in contradiction to the memory’s experience of being in danger). For another example, during the standard version of Flash, the person may focus on a positive image involving feeling connected to a loved one, in contradiction to feeling all alone in the memory.
Zimmerman’s Predictive Processing Flash is all about purposefully creating one mismatch after another. In this version of Flash, the mismatch you’re going for is the client having a positive feeling in conjunction with accessing and activating the disturbing memory. Therefore, client distress is prevented, or if it happens, it’s quickly shut down; because distress would confirm the memory as is, and we’re trying to shake things up. This prohibition against the experience of distress would presumably make Zimmerman’s version of Flash extremely well tolerated.
I find it exciting to see a theory-driven model, especially when the theory is grounded in neuroscience. But does it work? Obviously Zimmerman thinks so – as do many of the therapists he has trained. That’s a good start. Now let’s see some research – which I understand is in the works.
