The Flash Technique can help to quickly reduce distress. Flash is a gentle and light-touch approach. It lessens the emotional intensity of trauma and anxiety without asking the client to talk through their painful experiences. The Flash Technique can therefore help people to resolve extreme disturbance without them feeling further distress.

 

The person is guided to concentrate on a positive and pleasurable memory, image or activity (hobby, pet, photo, video, holiday etc.) then to “flash” past the traumatic image so rapidly that only a manageable segment is acknowledged. The person repeats quick glances back to the disturbing experience, alternated with a much longer, more vivid focus on the positive image. The person is asked to momentarily interrupt the positive image with several eye blinks and to also apply slow bilateral stimulation by left-right tapping.

 

Flash works through subliminal processing. The pairing of the negative with the positive presents a strong mismatch or contradiction to the brain. Because there is no disturbance experienced when recollecting the bad memory, this undermines and disconfirms its association with distress. The brain therefore unlearns its predicted response and replaces it with new expectations. This contrary experience provided by the Flash Technique creates new learning and a rewiring of the brain, known as memory reconsolidation.