the rewind treatment

Using the unique Rewind treatment programme, the Red Poppy Company can provide a proven, effective, safe, quick and non-drugs based treatment for trauma sufferers.

Rewind is safe for the client, and the practitioner, because unlike counselling or debriefing there is no risk of retraumatising the victim or traumatising the counsellor during treatment (see Your Legal Requirements on the Helping your organisation page)

"I have been using the Rewind Technique, also known as the Fast Phobia Cure and Visual-Kinaesthetic Dissociation (VKD), since 2001. I have found it to be a highly effective treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and post-trauma symptoms, with patients often getting markedly better after just a few sessions. Not rarely there is a dramatic improvement after just one session. If the Rewind Technique was more widely used I am convinced that there would be a significant decrease in the aftermath of post-trauma symptoms including depression, anxiety, alcohol and substance abuse. For this reason I support fully what the human givens therapists at The Red Poppy Company are offering the community."

Dr Farouk Okhai MB ChB, MD (Texas), MRCPsychConsultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy

Rewind is also known as the ‘fast phobia cure’ or V.K.D

The technique works by allowing the traumatised individual, whilst in a safe and relaxed state to reprocess the traumatic memory in question so that it becomes stored as an ordinary, albeit unpleasant, and non-threatening memory, rather than one that continually activates a terror response.

The individual who has suffered the traumatic event is asked to revisit it, but, most importantly from a detached and safe distance, watching the events unfold mentally through a television screen providing an emotional distance between themselves and the event in question.

Carried out in a state of deep relaxation, Rewind’s effectiveness is well documented as outlined in the case studies contained on this site. Rewind is effective and suitable for both individuals with disability and for children.

Red Poppy’s practitioners are highly trained in the Rewind technique.

The Rewind technique is totally safe. No harm can come to people by using this technique, unlike some other talking therapies where the trauma can be embedded deeper.

It is also safe for the Rewind practitioner. In other treatments, the practitioner’s can become traumatised by hearing a traumatic account or by repeatedly hearing traumatic experiences. Using Rewind, they do not need to hear or know any of the details to perform the treatment.

In addition, Rewind is non voyeuristic. A person who has been raped, for example, can undergo the treatment without, if they so wish, having to talk to the counsellor about any of the intimate details of the experience.

Thirdly, the technique is fast. A person traumatised by being in a rail crash, for example, and who, as a consequence, wouldn't use any form of public transport, and didn't want to leave home alone, could use buses and trains again immediately after undergoing this process. This was the experience of a survivor of the Paddington rail crash.

Once relaxed, clients are asked to recall or imagine a place where they feel totally safe and at ease. Their relaxed state is then deepened and they are asked to imagine that, in their safe place, they have a TV set, a video player and a remote control.

They are then asked to step to one side of themselves, in essence, out of body and watch themselves watching the TV screen, without actually seeing the picture. (Enabling them to create a significant emotional distance).

Clients are then asked to watch themselves watching a ‘film’ of the traumatic event they encountered. The film begins at a point at which the trauma took place and finishes at the point at which the trauma ends and they feel safe again.

They are then asked to float back into their body and imagine pressing the remote control rewind button, enabling them to see themselves travelling very quickly back through the traumatic event from safe point to safe point. Then they watch the same images but with their fingers pressed firmly on the fast forward button.

This process is repeated at a speed dictated by the individual concerned and as many times as needed until the scenes evoke no emotion.

If it desirable to instil confidence for facing the feared circumstance in the future - for instance driving a car or getting in a lift – the client is then asked to imagine a scenario in which they are experiencing the circumstance in question but doing so in a confident and relaxed manner.

Once accomplished, the client is brought out of relaxation and the Rewind is complete.

Besides being safe, quick, painless and side effect free, the Rewind technique has the added advantage of being non-voyeuristic. There is no need for intimate details to be voiced, as it is the client who watches the ‘film’ and not the counsellor.

To see how effective the Rewind Technique can be, visit our case studies page.

Registered in England 04424828,
Corporate Member of the Institute of Health Promotion and Education (C302)