2023 Presenter

Dr. Philip Manfield and Dr. Lewis Engel

Introduction to the Flash Technique

In the four years since the Flash Technique was introduced at the 2019 EMDRIA Conference it has been refined and improved, and been validated by many research studies. In this presentation we will describe the most up-to-date instructions for the technique and briefly summarize the research evidence for its effectiveness. We will show a clinical video that illustrates the most current application of the technique, and lead an exercise that gives each participant a brief personal experience of the Flash Technique. Although a variety of applications of the Flash Technique have emerged over the past four years, we will confine our discussion to its use in the preparation phase of EMDR in a manner consistent with the Adaptive Information Processing model. Time permitting, we will include a short live demonstration and answer questions about the technique.

About the Presenters:

Philip Manfield, Ph.D. is the developer of the flash technique, an intervention that permits the processing of trauma virtually painlessly. Developed in 2016 for use in the preparation phase of EMDR, it makes possible the processing of extremely disturbing memories that clients might otherwise be unwilling to address. In the past six years, eleven papers have been published supporting its effectiveness. Together with his colleague, Lewis Engel, PhD, he has presented introductions to the flash technique at five national and international conferences, conducted webinars and workshops in eleven countries in addition to the United States, and trained over 12,000 clinicians.

Lewis Engel, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in San Rafael, California. A former associate professor of psychology at Lone Mountain College, San Francisco, he is the author of Imaginary Crimes: Why We Punish Ourselves and How To Stop, co-authored with Tom Ferguson, M.D.. Over the past six years he has collaborated with Dr. Phil Manfield, the developer of the Flash Technique, training 12,000 therapists around the world in the use of the Flash Technique. They have been lead authors in two of the ten peer-reviewed journal articles published about the Flash Technique.