Are Quick-Fix Therapies for Trauma and Stress too Good to be True?
Unconventional therapies promising rapid relief — like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — are becoming more popular. Whether they work is up for debate.
Traci Powell experienced a personal epiphany while watching the Disney movie Frozen.
A nurse practitioner from Florida, Powell had long struggled to keep memories of her childhood abuse at bay. As a way to cope, she organized her life so that she never had to develop intimate relationships: She conceived her children via an anonymous donor and padded her schedule with nonstop work, further graduate school, and volunteering. But it didn’t help.
Powell was increasingly plagued by flashbacks, and began having panic attacks. When on a tram entering the park at Disney World with her best friend, she was seated next to a man who reeked of beer and stale cigarettes, an aroma that reminded her of her abuser; the smell so unnerved her that her heart began racing, and she had to leap off the train at the park’s entrance and collect herself. She was so triggered by her teenage daughter’s deadbeat boyfriend — he had been caught doing drugs, which reminded her of the unstable environment in her childhood home — that she…
