Fast Phobia Cure

The Fast Phobia Cure is an NLP technique that is used to help people dissociate unwelcome emotions from traumatic or phobic life events. I have posted this article on my site so that the script and the references below can be used as a resource. The Fast Phobia Cure has also been called Rewind Therapy and The visual-kinesthetic dissociation (V/KD) protocol.

This type of therapy works by allowing you to change the submodalities of a traumatic event and by changing the way you see or relate to that memory. It then allows you to react differently in the future when exposed to a similar situation.

Fast Phobia Cure Script

This script helps a person to visualise themselves in an old cinema, watching themselves watch a movie of a traumatic event from up above in the projector booth thereby introducing a number of levels of dissociation.

1. Establish a resourceful state and anchor that state you want to be in, sitting by yourself in an old cinema, fully relaxed in a comfortable chair looking towards the screen.
2. I want you to be able to see yourself in a film of that event/memory on the screen, and freeze-frame that film of that event now, just before it begins.
3. Before you press play I want you to change where you are, I want you to float up and away from the chair and float up and back into the projector booth so that you are able to watch yourself from the booth watching yourself watch the movie.
4. Imagine also that you’ve got a remote control and you’re able to do things like stop, rewind, blur, turn down the sound, or fast forward the movie at any time you want to. With the remote control in your hand, you’re in full control of the movie all times.
5. So go back to the beginning of the movie and start playing the movie of that event/memory in black and white. Remember you are watching yourself watching the movie from the projector booth, you are not in the movie or watching the movie but watching yourself watching the movie.
6. See if you can run the movie forward in black and white towards the end, pausing and rewinding as many times as is needed until you are comfortable in watching yourself do that.
7. When you get to the end of the movie freeze the movie and white it out or black it out.
8. Now step into the movie and run it backwards in colour all the way to the beginning everything backwards everything in reverse, even the sound.
9. Then stop the movie at the start and step out of the movie and float back up to the projector booth and repeat this process again (watching yourself watching the film) but change things about the movie each time you play it forward.
   1. Make the screen smaller as well as black and white and run the movie again (then go back through steps 8, 9).
   2. Cange the focus so the movie is blurred and out of focus.
   3. Turn down the sound, make movie quiet, or even add in silly music, change the characters, and keep repeating this process again and again.
10. Remembering at each time to step back into the movie and run it back to the start in full colour on fast rewind really quickly to the start before you play it forward again.
11. Keep doing this until you can’t get those old feelings back when you play that memory again.

This technique allows you to disassociate yourself away from a traumatic event, remembering to watch yourself watching the movie rather than being in it as you play it forward.

You are also able to change the film as well, you can turn down elements, like voices, noises, take away the colour or make the screen smaller.

References

Muss, D. C. (1991). A new technique for treating Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1991, 30, 91-92.

Hossack, A., Bentall, R. P. (1996). Elimination of posttraumatic symptomatology by relaxation and visual-kinesthetic dissociation. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9(1), 99-110.

Bandler, R. (1985) Using Your Brain for a Change. Moab, UT: Real People Press

Andreas, C. and Andreas, S. (1989) Heart of the Mind. Moab, UT: Real People Press

Dilts, R. and DeLozier, J. (2000) The Encyclopedia of Systemic Neuro-Linguistic Programming and NLP New Coding. Retrieved June 25, 2006, from www.nlpu.com.

https://anlp.org/files/nlp-and-ptsd-the-visual-kinesthetic-dissociation-protocol_6_331.pdf