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The following message is relayed to you by [email protected]
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Below is an article recently published in Ivy Magazine (International
Viewpoints Magazine). by Rolf Dane. Mr. Dane graciously gave me permission to
republish it on the TROM list.
While Mr. Dane is talking about an Therapist/Patient type of processing his
background on what to run is so clearly what Dennis is talking about in TROM
that i felt you all would find it interesting.
I have stated in the past that All workable therapies work at finding and
reducing portions of the reactive mind just as TROM does and this is a clear
example of that.
Keep On TROMing
Pete
Addressing Three Levels of Experience in Incident Running
An Introduction to Deep Incident Running (DIR)
DIR is a new method of dealing with traumatic incidents. It is related to
several existing methods. But it runs deeper and can resolve even severe trauma
in a workman-like fashion. This is the claim of the developer, who in this
article outlines the theory behind this new technique.
By Rolf Dane, the developer of DIR.
It is a well-known fact that our personal history will leave us with emotional
and physical scars that past generations had no real answer for beyond the
medical patch up - and maybe a "sympathetic ear" of a friend, the advice, "let
time heal the wounds" or to make "a change of environment" and the like.
Today there do exist a number of alternative or cutting edge therapies that are
quite effective in resolving these traumas. Among the ones we are familiar with
and have studied can be mentioned, Traumatic Incident Reduction by Dr. Frank
Gerbode, Routine 3X by Robert Ducharme, Transformational Processing by Flemming
Funch and Dianetics by Ron Hubbard. These methods are all quite effective. That
does not mean there is no reason to look for improved methods of dealing with
trauma as such incidents, severe or light, play an important - if negative -
role in most people's lives.
In Deep Incident Running (D.I.R.) we define Trauma as an overwhelming of the
person. This overwhelm can happen on three levels. It can be an overwhelming of
thought, of emotion, or on a physical level - as in physical trauma. The
overwhelming can be on just one level or on all three levels at the same time.
The degree of overwhelming determines the severity of the trauma.
The basic concept of DIR is to address all three levels and convert any
overwhelming found into experience. The "DEEP" in Deep Incident Running stands
for Decisions, Emotions, Efforts and Polarities. So we have Decisions on the
thought level; Emotions on the emotional level. Efforts or force on the
physical level. Finally we have Polarities. It covers the situation that led to
the trauma. It was a confrontational situation: it could be two persons in a
fight of some kind; it could be an emotional impact (such as from loss or bad
news); or it could be a physical impact leading to a physical trauma.
Any situation that leaves the person in an overwhelmed state, analytically,
emotionally or physically, is recorded by the person. It is recorded in the
mind, on an emotional level - and on a physical level too in case of impact,
etc. The person will often suffer lasting negative effects from this. It ties
up the person's attention and interest and steals some of the person's energy,
vitality and joy of life.
In case of physical trauma, the first thing to do is to attend to any injury
using first aide and then get the person competent medical treatment. What DIR
addresses is not medical situations. The ambition is to help the person, after
medical treatment, to recover faster or overcome lasting effects of the
accident or injury.
In DIR we take experiences of overwhelming (traumatic experiences) and convert
them from being subconscious beatings to intuitive experiences. Through DIR
processing the trauma gets assimilated as part of one's life experience. As a
result the person has a new and better chance of succeeding in that field or
endeavor and, through running many types of incidents with DIR, the person has
a greater chance of success and happiness in life in general.
The Complaint
Incident Complaint: The person can have a complaint about a certain and known
traumatic incident. The incident will be addressed as a known event of the
personal history. It can be loss of a loved one, an accident, an assault, an
operation, a severe illness in the past, a period or situation of extreme
stress, etc. It can be loss of any kind; emotional or physical trauma of any
kind. Such incidents can be addressed directly.
General Complaint: The person can also have a general complaint of unpleasant
emotion and reaction to certain things or an inexplicable physical ailment,
such as a pain, a soreness, itch, etc. with no immediate or medical
explanation. One starts out by asking for incidents containing this unpleasant
complaint; be it negative emotion, unpleasant feeling, a pain, odd body
sensation and more. An incident containing this complaint is found and run.
Then another incident is taken up, etc. until the complaint is gone or no more
incidents can be found.
Area Complaint: The complaint can also be about the person's feelings and
reactions towards a certain subject or an area of inability. One would find
pains, emotions, feelings, attitudes, etc. connected to that subject or area
and run them as general complaints. Examples of area complaints could be
"feeling bad about one's time in middle school," "having troubles with study,"
"having troubles in one's marriage," etc.
The Main Difference from Earlier Techniques
Compared to the techniques mentioned above, the DEEP techniques take a greater
interest in the person's subjective emotions, feelings and reactions. This is
based on the observation and analysis that the same or comparable incidents
(such as loss of a loved one) can have a very different effect on different
people. Different individuals have different thresholds for being overwhelmed.
A paramedic can arrive at an accident scene and just consider it "business as
usual" while a bystander, seeing the same thing, can be horrified and
traumatized for life. We conclude that it is not the incident itself that does
the most damage but that it is actually the person's reactions and decisions
and perpetuated reactions to the incident that seems to be the permanent
damage. By concentrating on that subjective side, the emotional and cognitive
damage can be more easily and fully repaired. Even physical conditions that
didn't respond to medical treatment can be
unlocked and now respond to treatment or simply heal up.
Relief and significant case improvement also happens routinely using the older
techniques; but the end goal of DIR is to exhaust the person's reactions to the
event (such as emotions, feelings and pains) rather than have the person look
at all the bad things that happened to him or her. The person, in other words,
gets an intuitive lesson in his or her own participation and unknowing cause of
subsequent troubles and sufferings. These are the subjective elements the
person can do something about - and the clinical record shows that this is the
fastest and most complete way to overcome such trauma.
DIR is still incident running; but once an incident with the complaint is
contacted, the processor works directly on the discomforts contained therein by
having the person re-experience and intensify them and even recreate them in
the session using various techniques. The theory is, that the person basically
continuously, though involuntarily, generates these unwanted sensations him- or
herself. By using the DEEP techniques the person can be made to gain control
over them and then turn them off.
This DEEP approach makes the need for running past lives incidents less
necessary. Some persons have had problems finding such incidents and also in
getting all the details of for instance childhood incidents - or even getting
an earlier similar incident when that is called for. The DEEP method emphasizes
the many sensations, pains and feelings that bother the person, also in present
time, and exhausts those under competent guidance in session and has less use
for scenarios and long stories. The efficiency of DEEPs subjective approach has
been supported by plenty of clinical evidence.
Main Spheres of Interest
The subjective content of an incident can be separated into 3 bands or zones.
They form a scale of physicality.
Effort, Force
The most physical is force. This is dominant in physical trauma. By force we
mean physical impact, something solid collides with the person. When the person
him- or herself uses force we usually call it effort. This consists of the
person exerting muscle power, typically to counter or attack the force coming
from the outside. Also to affect or attack the physical world or another
person's body. Force and effort are physically measurable phenomena covered in
mechanical physics and physiology related to motion. It is recorded by the
person as Motor Memory. In the force band we have physical pain stemming from
collision of two forces or efforts. There is too much force or effort to
tolerate or the person is colliding with force or solidity and experiences pain.
Also included in the force/effort band is less traumatic phenomena such as
motion, action, physical performance and even body language. If it includes use
of muscles it is classified as an effort. If it takes any amount of physical
energy it is classified as force.
Phenomena in the Force band: Pain; sensations of: impact, injury, motion,
falling, weight and other physical universe phenomena; exhaustion, etc.,
including the catalog of physical sufferings well known to emergency room
doctors handling physical trauma.
We are here dealing with all the phenomena that easily can be explained or
illustrated by physical causes.
Emotions, Feelings
There are several types of emotions/feelings. We sub-divide them into 1)
Primary emotions; 2) Secondary emotions; 3) Body sensations; 4) Feelings.
1. Primary emotions: These are emotions generated by the Being and directed at
the body or towards the exterior world. These are the emotions of an
extroverted person dealing with the environment; the emotions of a hunter, a
sportsman, a worker in action, etc. Emotions in this band have a clear
physiological function. They control or prompt certain actions and responses
and affect the endocrine system directly. Seeing a danger produces fear,
produces hormonal response of fleeing from the source of danger. In confident
individuals the danger may produce anger: the emotion of attack. This is the
"fight or flight" response of the endocrine system.
A skilled public speaker, musician or artist uses primary emotions to convey
his or her messages. In essence such a communication is aimed at affecting the
audience and manipulating the audience members' emotions and behavior.
2. Secondary emotions: These are not primary reactions to the environment. But
they comprise a huge amount of luggage; some of it useful, much of it mainly a
burden. It is our emotional response to things less tangible or physically
consequential. The person sees a landscape and feels sad as it reminds him of a
time that is lost; or sees a certain building and is filled with happy
emotions - something positive happened there recently and may happen again.
Using secondary feelings is an intuitive way of thinking. How big a role they
play can vary enormously from person to person. It can be a very healthy way to
navigate in life. For some it is a curse causing depression or unnecessary
stress and general unhappiness. It is of course a huge subject so we are only
scratching the surface here.
Just a note: animals have demonstrably primary emotions. They also have
secondary emotions stemming from physical trauma. They may lack a range of
secondary emotions. Animals are not considered capable of reflecting over
things by either using reason or emotion.
3. Body sensations: This category is comprised of various feelings stemming
from the body, such as ache, soreness, itch, thirst, full stomach and dozens of
other impulses, good and bad. The body is trying to tell us about its
condition. By perceiving the range of body sensations we are aware of and in
contact with the body. Sometimes these signals stem from past situations that
should be located and processed as it is unpleasant and distracting "noise"
related to the past. Sometimes these signals should be cause of alarm and
immediate action. Sometimes one needs to change habits or diet or seek medical
help immediately as a consequence of these signals.
4. Feelings: Any given feeling is a complex combination of thoughts and
secondary emotions. It cannot be categorized into the well-known clean
emotions, such as apathy, grief, fear, anger, antagonism, contentment or
enthusiasm; it can be a "gut feeling" or "feeling sort of happy but still not
sure of the outcome." It is a way of "thinking" about one's situation, about
other people, a project, etc. It is a clear manifestation of awareness or a way
to know. It is thinking with one's heart - some say with their gut.
Thought
Thought is mental activity dealing in ideas and concepts. Thought can be
verbalized. There is 1. Analytical thought (or reason,) and 2. Reactive thought.
1. Analytical thought (reason) is clear thinking with a high ability to
differentiate and see minute differences among very similar things. It is
characterized by the ability to discern differences and similarities and
recognize things that are identical. Working with, studying or looking at
something, one can perceive and classify things correctly and work with the
concepts of things in the mind. One can combine ideas and arrive at new ones.
One can forecast correctly, be aware of consequences by using logic, etc.
2. Reactive thought is a coarser function of the mind. It has much to do with
conditioned reflexes, or stimulus response. Certain stimuli will cause a
predetermined response. This can be due to upbringing, education and
indoctrination.
Also physical trauma may cause this. The person seems to "learn" certain
lessons during such moments. A girl burns her fingers on a stove and will have
an involuntary flinch next time she sees one - even when it is cold. She has
"learned" not to touch stoves. The conditioned reflex seems to be in place to
make sure it doesn't happen again. (This is what we call the
"Must-not-happen-again" reaction. If a person has many of those, living a
normal life becomes very hard.) When the girl sees a stove the mechanism can be
triggered. It will however include much or all of the original discomforts
(negative emotion, sensation and pain.) It will also contain decisions and
conclusions made at the time. By contacting and running the original burning
incident this spell can be lifted. The girl may again touch or not touch stoves
as she sees fit. The burning incident has been transformed to experience.
The Shock Moment
Of special interest in DIR is decisions and thoughts made during such traumatic
moments. Any thought content has been locked up in the incident together with
emotions and sensations. If generalities, destructive, self-destructive, or
very emotional decisions or conclusions were made, they can have a very
negative effect on one's thinking and behavior later on. Also, decisions that
made sense in a certain situation may make no sense or be destructive in just
about any other context. They are now simply out of place. They were urgent
decisions that, apparently, had to be carried out before the person could react
based on reason. Thus they can be hard to detect. They seem to live on in the
subconscious mind without the person suspecting them. Also due to the high pain
or stress content in the trauma, these decisions tend to stay hidden and
uninspected. In processing, any locked up, irrational, out-of-context thoughts
and hidden urgent outcries are isolated
and processed and the person's thinking is again freed up.
Examples of locked up thoughts in shock moments: A woman gets raped and decides
in shock and panic that "all men are bad!" and lives by it ever since. A man
gets injured in a car accident and in a flash decides "I should never have
driven!" and agonizes each time he is in a car after that. A boy gets blown to
sea in a small boat and gets suddenly really scared and says to himself "I
won't make it!" That may act as a decision of defeat for the rest of his life.
Getting these decisions - these often urgent exclamations and outcries -
isolated and run out may turn things around. The incidents were remembered as
nightmares. Through DIR processing they become invaluable lessons of life: on
the analytical level, on the emotional level and on the behavioral level (the
effort level.) They become accessible without any pain or negative emotion.
They add simply to what could be called the person's intuitive understanding of
the situation. And this is life
experience at its best.
Descriptive words of shock moment: Being shocked, upset, horrified, alarmed,
defeated, terrorized, beaten down, dismayed, appalled, overwhelmed, confused,
wiped out, nullified, unmocked, betrayed, abandoned, double-crossed,
steamrolled, in panic, gone ballistic, exploded, in a tantrum, protesting,
collapsed, given up, surrender, panic attack, nervous breakdown, psychotic
break, etc.
General principle of Running DIR
First of all, the practitioner has to find an incident to run. As mentioned,
one can take up an incident complaint - be it a physical or emotional trauma or
simply a situation of extreme stress. Often one will find that the emotional
trauma is sitting on a hidden physical trauma. If that is contacted during the
running of the emotional one, the practitioner should consider running the
physical one instead, or immediately after the emotional trauma has been well
discharged.
One can also work from a general complaint, such as an unwanted emotion,
sensation or pain the person wants to get rid of. One finds incidents, one
after the other, which may have caused the complaint and run the incident out.
The interest factor is important. If the person has strong interest in doing
something about the complaint, the chances for success are much greater. The
person is motivated and has a good awareness in the area. When the interest
factor is high, the chances of finding earlier similar incidents containing the
same complaint are much greater too. Once the first incident has been
discharged, one can simply ask for an earlier incident containing the same
complaint. This is used if the person at this point still seems preoccupied
with the complaint.
Running an Incident
When an incident is contacted, the person is first returned or regressed to the
time it took place. Then the person is sent through the incident as if it were
happening right now, re-experiencing it. This is by the book of the other
methods of incident running as well.
Once that is done, one can go into DEEP mode. In DIR, the practitioner would
have listened carefully to how the person described the experience and now uses
this knowledge in the following step. The practitioner asks into the emotions,
feelings, reactions and thoughts expressed and suspected. In physical trauma
the force band, recorded as Motor Memory, is the most important area to contact
and run. In emotional trauma the emotions, feelings and reactions are, of
course, dominant and would be emphasized.
Using the basic tools of DEEP, the incident is exhausted of emotions and
feelings; of effort and force (motor memory); and of any shock moment and
thoughts - but not necessarily in that order. Any shock moment of the incident
is asked for and carefully run. The shock is what locks up all the negative
effects. Sometimes one has to find an earlier incident and run its shock to get
permanent resolution.
One thing that can be used in DIR is to explore the two sides of effort and
force colliding. This is done by viewing the two (or more) sides separately.
First we run the general experience of the injured person. Then we would review
the outside force hitting the person and then the person's own efforts in
dealing with that, fighting back, holding it off or fleeing - whatever the
case may be.
This collision of physical objects or energies causes a permanent ridge in the
person's energy field as the two sides lock up against each other. The person
has a motor memory recording of both sides. Say, a football soccer player was
tackled by another player and was injured. First we run the person's own
experience and motor memory of the accident. But obviously, it was "the other
player" who was the negative cause of the person's injury. It is hard to see
one's own cause in relation to that. However, it is the injured person's own
motor memory recording of the other player's actions that causes the permanent
damage. The injured person has this recording of being hit as well as a
recording of his own actions and reactions in the situation. To run out the
outside force (the opponent), we have the person assume the viewpoint of the
other player and have our hurt person run the incident from that perspective.
By doing so, we access the injured
person's own motor memory recordings of the hostile force hitting him and can
now dissolve that side of the ridge as well.
By working both sides, the ridge will dissolve and the person can now move up
to present time, so to speak. The frozen moment in time, battling a hostile
force or opponent, has become liquid and can now virtually evaporate. The same
can be explored when it comes to emotion and thought.
Often you will find emotion and counter-emotion colliding, as in a heated
argument. The same could be said about thought, counter-thought. Here it is the
clashing of ideas in the argument.
In running the shock moment, we are interested in the statement contained
therein. Sometimes it has to be sorted out as the person didn't put words on it
previously. Also impulses, which could be said to contain thought as well as
effort, may be found. They should be worded and run out, including acting out
any impulses and efforts. If no wording can be found, impulses can simply be
acted out under the processor's control.
As said above, it should also be noted that what gives these thoughts such a
command value is the force and threat that was present at the time, the threat
of consequences, to wellbeing and survival. It is therefore mandatory to get
any such force discharged of these moments to make the statements lose their
negative command value.
Note: The technique of running viewpoints can also be used to specifically
discharge the shock moment. Each viewpoint present in the shock moment is
simply run. The person is made to view the moment or short sequence through the
eyes of each principal person, group or viewpoint present, one at the time, and
the confusion in the shock evaporates. This is not included in DIR-1, the
seminar, but is part of professional DIR.
Rounding Off
This is the outline of Deep Incident Running as it exists today. More advanced
techniques along the same principles are being tested daily and adjusted so
they can be published. We are at the time of this writing busy delivering DIR
to new and old clients. We find that incidents already run by older methods can
be addressed again and new layers of emotional charge, etc. can be gotten off.
At the same time the clients get some valuable lessons of life from DIR by
getting a better understanding of themselves: their decisions, emotions,
efforts and polarities (conflicts.) The DIR techniques take about the same time
to administer to one incident as the older techniques do, our claim is that
this is a valuable approach that may change the business of running traumatic
incidents.
Deep Processing and Conflicts
There is another research undergoing that actually came before DIR. We were
engaged in a research of processing identities. This research was done with
persons, who had an expressed goal of using processing for self-development
rather than simply addressing complaints.
We took up identities, one at the time, the person had trouble dealing with and
processed any charge found. Then we found the own identity used in dealing with
that trouble person and processed any charge found on that (own) side. Here the
"Polarities" (as the P in DEEP) is the obvious clashing of identities, roles or
characters. This processing has been very successful in research with selected
persons and has been underway for about 5 years.
An easy to read and illustrated introduction to that can be found on our web
site:
http://rolfdane.com/deep.htm
Rolf Dane,
Copenhagen, June 12, 2011.
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