Flash technique group for parents with parenting stress of children with special education needs

Flash Technique (FT) is a new protocol for use in the preparation phase of EMDR to quickly reduce the emotional intensity of stressful memories before full processing with EMDR. This presentation is about the use of FT in groups with parents whose children were having special education needs (e.g. Autistic Spectrum disorder, ADHD, developmental delay, mental retardation). These parents were recruited from special and integrative child care centres for pre-school children (aged from 2 to 6 years old) in Hong Kong. This FT group is a preventive group intervention to reach out to parents who do not show clinical symptoms of emotional disorders, but are actually under chronic stress in daily life. The group consisted of 4 sessions with 3 hours for each session. This short group duration was designed to meet the busy schedule of parents in Hong Kong. Participants filled out the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) in the first and 4th session. The post group scores of GHQ-12 showed a significant reduction in stress level. Parents also reported the PEF became their resourced memory that they would recall about it in time of stress. The group started with psychoeducation about how stress affect parenting. The participants were taught to briefly bring up a parenting stressful situation and then assigning a SUD. Afterwards, this memory was put aside. They were then instructed to focus on a Positive Engaging Focus (PEF), while tapping on their thighs simultaneously. They were also asked to blink their eyes in rapid succession (triple flash) until the SUD of the traumatic memory decreased. If SUD persisted after a number of flashes, EMDR-IGTP-OTS group protocol will be introduced.

Conference

English

Maggie Poon

Poon, M. (2020, January). Flash technique group for parents with parenting stress of children with special education needs. Paper presented at the 4th EMDR Asia International Conference, Bangkok, Thailand