ADHD: A Path to Success
By Lawrence Weathers, Ph.D.
Introduction
(Continued)
Why My Interest in ADHD
Professionally, I have been working with ADHD children since 1971. For the first twenty years I read the books, took courses, and did the therapy as prescribed. As hard as I tried to make it work, the theoretical picture did not seem to fit the children I was seeing, nor did the prescribed therapy approaches prove very useful.
In 1991, I began to develop a radically different approach to psychotherapy for all of my patients, ADHD and others. This led to the invention of a computerized psychotherapy machine, Computer Aided Emotional Restructuring (CAER).
Computer Aided Emotional Restructuring is a new, patented, treatment that sprang from another new therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMD/R). (EMD/R is fully explained in chapter 24).
Unlike traditional therapies, CAER does not depend much on talking. Rather, it taps powerful neurological mechanisms to elicit deep relaxation and vivid mental imagery. When these two effects are juxtaposed, pathology-producing emotions are extinguished through a process called desensitization.
More simply put, CAER uses lights and sound to help the ADHD child enter a relaxed state. Then, the relaxed and calm child, with the aid and supervision of a therapist, imagines an anxiety-provoking situation — such as school. Quickly, the relaxed state erases the anxiety state so that school, or whatever the provoker might be, no longer causes stress in the child.
No drugs are used at all.
Initially I used Computer Aided Emotional Restructuring on my adult patients who had a variety of common problems such as depression, anxiety, phobias and marriage problems. The results were exciting. Many times these problems were eradicated in just a few sessions.
Therefore, I began to extend the procedure to other problems not commonly addressed by EMD/R, including ADHD. Even with my early, primitive CAER machines, the results were striking.
I really did not know why CAER works, but two different sources began to yield insights. By reflecting on my own difficult school history and listening to the ADHD children themselves, my understanding developed. These children were telling me about feelings and experiences that I could remember well from my own school years.
That's why ADHD: A Path to Success is a story of hope for parents of ADHD children. It is a personal story. It is my story. It is the success story of my patients.
When people describe a specific ADHD child, I'm often left with an image of the kid with a clock mainspring spiraling out of his head and gears raining down. If all of his gears and springs were in right, if his broken parts were fixed, he would work and do what we want.
* Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect identity.
Buy
ADHD: A Path to Success
directly from the Author
$13.50
