ART therapy training held for therapists and social workers

ST. ANTHONY, Idaho (KIFI) - Therapists and social workers have a new way to help clients, after completing a training Thursday.

It's called Accelerated Resolution Therapy, or ART, explains Holly Christensen, an LMSW and a Master ART practitioner.

"This is focused more for trauma, but it also works for anxiety and depression and OCD and things like that," Christensen said. "It's a process-oriented smooth pursuit bilateral eye movement therapy. Not unlike EMDR which a lot of people are familiar with. We call this EMDR on steroids. It is fast, it is effective, and the results last."

While it may look like the therapist is just waving a hand, it's actually more complex.

"We're engaging both hemispheres of the brain." Christensen said. "And then we invite the participant to voluntarily replace any negative or traumatic images with something that is more comfortable, less traumatizing. All the facts remain, but they have a different emotional response."