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Love is stronger than death.
Healing the hurt with IADC®
This phenomenon, discovered by psychologist and EMDR practitioner, Dr. Allan Botkin, Psy. D., during his 20 years of work with the VA hospital in Chicago, Illinois, gives clients an experience of reunion with friends and loved ones who have passed away. The research on this technique shows that these experiences are consistent when facilitated by a therapist trained in this method, and are very instrumental in helping heal the deep sadness associated with grief over a death.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) has become the treatment of choice for trauma, anxiety, and other mental health issues over the last fifteen years. Used in a particular way, Dr. Botkin and all the other IADC® trained practitioners, have found that it reliably allows experiential reconnection that most people view as being real and profound.
Successful grieving has been shown to be a process, not of “letting go” but “going on” to a new phase of relationship with the person who is no longer physically present. IADC® is not a philosophy, or a way of looking at death. It is a series of events that happen within the mind of the client who is free to interpret those events however they may.
Graham Maxey, M. Div., M.A., LPC has been personally trained by Dr. Botkin in the IADC® protocol, and has experienced its benefits first hand.
HOW DOES IADC® WORK?
Three therapy sessions are scheduled.
The first session focuses on the core sadness about the issues related to the person’s passing, including the sensory memories that often seem “stuck”, or intrusive, and painful. EMDR is used to help the client quickly process these feelings and images, and to integrate them into the client’s meaning of that event. Grieving is the process of “putting the pieces back together”. EMDR helps this happen by accelerating the emotional reprocessing of the information so that it is useful, instead of just painful.
The second session is the Induced After Death Communication session. After the core sadness is reduced, EMDR can be used to bring about an awareness of the deceased’s immediate presence via any sensory channel. The client can direct questions to the deceased and get information, and any unfinished business can be wrapped up, leaving the client with a new start, and new awareness of the on-going relationship.
The third session is to process anything that comes up after the first two. Often, the process continues after the client leaves the office, and new material or issues can be treated in the same manner as before until there is resolution.
A brief screening process is done over the phone before the first session. If it is determined that IADC® might not be appropriate for a client at this time, alternative grief facilitation will be offered.
To date, the success rate of clients having a recognizable after death communication with the person they intended to contact has been about 70% with all the IADC® therapists who use Dr. Botkin’s methods.
One issue, from time to time, does tend to get in the way of clients having the IADC® : the insistent expectation that they will have the experience in the way that they have envisioned it beforehand. It is an experience that clients must let themselves have, not try to make themselves have. EMDR in general works only when conscious decisions about what should happen are left aside. Although it is not a hypnotic state, the IADC® experience seems to come through the client’s openness to being in the process, and, as EMDR practitioners are always instructing, “letting whatever happens, happen.”
IS IADC® A SUBSTITUE FOR GRIEVING?
No. IADC® is a therapy modality that has been found to help the grieving process be more productive. Grief itself is the healing work, but when there are issues of guilt, hurt, anger, or a sense of absolute separation from the deceased, IADC® can be a way to move through those issues in a very short time and let the client get to the grieving that will heal them.
IS IADC® REAL?
Most clients experience a reconnection with their loved one or friend in ways that are self-authenticating. They don’t have to try to determine what the experience is, because it presents itself in ways that are as “real” as any other experience. No one will be pressured to believe anything about the nature of the IADC® . It works no matter what one’s world view might be.
HOW LONG DOES THIS TAKE?
The three sessions may be done over a three day period, or over several weeks. In no case will it be done in one sitting. That would not give the client sufficient time to let the process work through the unconscious, which is a major part of the healing. Each session is from 60-90 minutes.
Where is Inquire Within Counseling and Development Center?
The office is 17.7 miles southwest of DFW Airport, and 2.2 miles south of I-30 in Arlington, Texas, near the campus of The University of Texas at Arlington.