Addressing the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Imagery Rescripting and Reprocessing Theory (IRRT) offers patients a number of benefits. First, IRRT requires relatively little time compared to other therapy methods, often effecting results after a single two-hour session.
The Benefits of Mervin R. Smucker’s Imagery Rescripting and Reprocessing Therapy
1. The Benefits of Mervin R. Smucker’s
Imagery Rescripting and
Reprocessing Therapy
2. The Benefits of Mervin R. Smucker’s Imagery
Rescripting and Reprocessing Therapy
• Addressing the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD), Imagery Rescripting and Reprocessing Theory (IRRT)
offers patients a number of benefits. First, IRRT requires
relatively little time compared to other therapy
methods, often effecting results after a single two-hour
session. IRRT offers lasting results: IRRT patients surveyed
after treatment often report continued benefits for months
and years, as long as they follow the parameters of the
technique. Many therapists report an immediate change in
their patients’ demeanor after an IRRT session. The method
effectively minimizes flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, negative
thoughts, and other symptoms of PTSD.
3. The Benefits of Mervin R. Smucker’s Imagery
Rescripting and Reprocessing Therapy
• IRRT addresses the association of specific emotions with a traumatic
event and aims to break that connection. Since the emotion is
closely linked to the event, whenever the patient remembers the
event, he or she tends to experience the same traumatic emotions.
By breaking the association between emotion and event, IRRT frees
the patient from the unwanted feelings, allowing him or her to
escape from the fear of past trauma. To perform this
endeavor, patients are asked to close their eyes and visualize the
traumatic scene and verbalize it aloud to the therapist. Patients first
relive the experience as they remember it and then “rescript” their
images of the event, whereby victimization imagery is replaced with
mastery imagery vis-à-vis the perpetrator. After the perpetrator is
confronted and disempowered in the imagery, the patient is asked
to focus on the image of the child self, who then receives nurturance
and support from their adult self today. After the IRRT session, the
patient is then given an audiotape of the just-completed IRRT
session to listen to daily as homework as a means of continuing to
further process the cognitive and emotional material relating to the
traumatic imagery.