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The Trigger of
Eye-Movement Desensitization:
Dr. Allan Botkin's Research
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Dr.
Allan Botkin is head of the The
Center for Grief and Traumatic Loss
at
www.induced-adc.com and is a clinical
psychologist with over 15 years of experience
in the treatment of psychological trauma
(PTSD)
and grief. Many years ago, Dr. Botkin
began to experiment with variations
of a relatively new and very powerful
psychological treatment using Eye-Movement
Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
He discovered by accident how one variation
of EMDR reliably induced an experience
known as Induced After-Death Communication
(IADCs) which almost all patients believed
was authentic spiritual contact with
the deceased regardless of their prior
belief system. He published his findings
in his book
Induced After-Death Communication: A
New Therapy for Healing Grief and Trauma
with R. Craig Hogan and Dr. Raymond
Moody. An November 2003 article about
IADCs and Dr. Botkin involving the IADC
of a journalist can be found on
Dr. Botkin's Experiences section
of his website.
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The ADC research of
Bill and Gudy Guggenheim describe after-death
communications (ADCs) in their book
Hello From Heaven. ADCs occur spontaneously
in about 20% of the population, and are now
recognized by a number of authors and many professionals
in the field as emotionally transforming and
very healing experiences. Just as near-death
experiences convince those close to death of
the continuation of life after death, ADCs convince
survivors that the deceased are still very much
alive.
Dr. Raymond Moody, who sparked the public's
interest in NDEs with
Life After Life, was the first to purposely
induce ADCs with any success. He describes the
results of his technique in
Reunions. His 50% success rate with highly
motivated individuals indicates that we do have
some control over the production of the ADC
experience. Dr. Botkin's discovery is simply
a method, based upon a variation of a new and
very powerful psychological technique (EMDR),
that induces ADCs in a much more reliable (98%)
manner across a more heterogeneous population.
Moreover, since the ADC induction procedure
provided by Dr. Botkin's method provides greater
control of the experience, they are generally
more elaborated than either the spontaneous
variety, or those induced by Dr. Moody's procedure.
These more elaborated experiences not only result
in a more complete resolution of grief, they
are also more NDE-like (going through a tunnel
and towards light, seeing beautiful and rich
landscapes, etc.). Dr. Botkin cogently makes
the argument that ADCs and NDEs are essentially
experiences of the same phenomenon, although
clearly from different points of view. If true,
then all arguments that NDEs are nothing more
than the physiological by-products of a dying
brain, can be seriously questioned. Dr. Botkin's
patients routinely experience nearly all of
the same components of NDEs, and they are, in
almost all cases, very healthy and not near-death.
Dr. Botkin argues that the most important
aspect of this discovery is its clinical application:
it simply works, and offers hope that we will
be able to ameliorate a great deal of suffering.
From a scientific and philosophical point of
view, however, we also now have a means to study
ADCs, and logically NDEs as well, in laboratory
settings. The results of these efforts, which
will hopefully be multi-disciplinary, may answer
some questions humans have had ever since we
evolved to the point that we had the brain capacity
to consider our ultimate fate.
Dr. Botkin's
article appears in the Volume 18, No. 3 (Spring
2000) edition of
Journal of Near-Death Studies.
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The following
article is an example of Dr. Botkin's IADC therapy
used by permission.
A Vietnam
veteran spent many years experiencing guilt
and sadness over killing a young enemy soldier.
Few human
beings can kill another without feeling great
remorse, even in the heat of battle. That is
especially true when the soldier can see the
face of his enemy, the living person carrying
photos of his family, hoping to return home
to them at the end of the war hope ended by
the soldier's bullet. The face becomes a permanent
image in the soldier's memory that will appear
again and again for the remainder of his life,
wherever he goes, at every age. And when the
veteran arrives at a maturity where regret over
the killing is too great to suppress, the image
creates unbearable sadness, often masked by
rage and guilt.
That is what happened
to Mike.
Mike arrived in Vietnam a few
days before his first major battle. The battle
went on for some time and when his unit started
running low on ammunition, Mike was intensely
afraid they were all going to die. Just when
it appeared all hope had faded, a helicopter
arrived with supplies. As they were unloading
boxes of ammunition, Mike looked up and saw
a young enemy soldier running towards them.
He could see his face clearly. Overcome with
intense anger, he shot and killed him. Even
though it was the first time he killed another
human being, he felt exhilarated and in control
of his fate. When the battle was over, Mike
was congratulated by other soldiers, and he
felt fully trusted and accepted by his peers.
He didn't think much more about the event for
the remainder of his tour.
However, when
he returned home, Mike experienced nightmares
of the event that continued for the next 25
years. He repeatedly saw the face of the young
enemy soldier he killed and began to wonder
how old this enemy soldier was and whether he
had a family who grieved his death. At times,
he could retrieve his combat anger to justify
the incident, but at other times he felt great
remorse and sadness. "I just feel terrible.
What I did goes against everything I have every
believed," he said to me in my office. It was
clear that Mike needed to confront his sadness
by fully grieving the death of the person he
killed.
I performed the IADC procedure
and he closed his eyes. He described what he
saw. "I can see him, the young soldier's face,
but it doesn't like the face I saw in 'Nam and
what I see in my nightmares. I see him smiling
and happy." Mike sat quietly for a moment, then
opened his eyes. "He communicated to me that
he was very content where he was, and he understood
that I had to do what I did."
After a
few minutes of describing what happened, he
ended by saying, "I'm really surprised that
the person I killed would have such feelings.
This is really strange. I feel like he and I
are not just OK with each other; I feel like
we're friends."
After that session, the
look on the enemy soldier's face before he died
that had haunted Mike for over 25 years was
replaced by the smiling and happy face he experienced
in his IADC. He told me at the end of the session,
"I'm trying to bring up in my mind the old image
of his face I always saw in my nightmares, but
I can't."
A two year follow-up revealed
that Mike's nightmares of the incident had vanished
from that day on, and he felt only an important
connection to the enemy soldier he had killed.
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