CART

Introduction to C.A.R.T.

I modified the Flash Technique, which is a pre-EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) protocol created by Phil Manfield, Ph.D., in a way that allows couples (or friends or family members) to use their bond and loving contact to help lower one another’s activation to triggers.  I’ve decided to name the technique the Couples Activation Reduction Technique  (CART).  This exercise is super effective and safe to do at home, and you don’t have to be a therapist to do it.

The CART technique uses bilateral stimulation, lovingness, imagination, and a brain hack to significantly reduce anxiety related to a particular trigger.

Couples will decide who gets to be the “Anchor” and who gets to be the “Loved One.” The Anchor focuses on showing up in a caring, loving way, and temporarily puts aside any of their personal issues to stay with their partner during this process.  The Anchor is the person who will be holding space.  The Loved One is also willing to briefly put on hold legitimate concerns and engage in the exercise so their own nervous system can be soothed.  The goal of this is not problem solving, rather creating a context where one person’s nervous system can become more regulated; problem solving can occur later, from a more calm and centered place.

I use the word “amygdala” to refer to the reptile part of the brain, that when activated, produces a fight, flight, or freeze response.  I use “prefrontal cortex” to mean the part of our brain that processes logic, emotion, connection, love, spirituality, art, etc.  In reality, the biology is much more complicated than I am able to understand or explain.  Fortunately, we do not need to fully understand the biological science behind this technique for it to be effective.  It is just important is to understand that we are intentionally activating different parts of the brain.

In a nutshell, the Anchor will be loving their partner through touch, eye contact, bilateral stimulation (rotating left-side of the body / right-side of the body stimulation) through squeezing their partner’s hands, helping them access a positive internal experience, and using words to affirm their bond.  The Anchor will do this while also introducing and supporting a “brain hack” that makes the Loved One subconsciously aware of something that would normally trigger their amygdala to be activated.  This is repeated a few times and the activation level almost always goes down.

What we are doing is using the Anchor’s love and the Loved One’s internal resources as a way of lighting up their prefrontal cortex while we subliminally touch on an activation trigger in the Loved One so the brain can move the activation trigger from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex.  Then we have a preferred part of the brain processing triggers.  And that part of the brain has more of a capacity to appropriately respond to triggers.