Performance Enhancement Service
This service is for individuals or groups (usually teams). It is a time-limited intervention based upon psychological trauma treatments - consisting of EMDR followed by CBT when the EMDR is completed.
What is the connection between 'performance enhancement' and psychological trauma? The answer is surprisingly easy. Consider the following:
You are a sportsman or woman (or a team or a sports coach). With the 2012 Olympics coming up, you are hoping that your performance can be improved – indeed maximised, after all that is what winning medals is about.
Do you stand a chance of a medal? Do your 'nerves' let you down? The answer is probably yes to both questions. It might be that at a crucial point doubting thoughts occur that generate the anxiety that effectively spoils your performance. Just as it is possible to recall a painful memory and the negative emotions associated with it, it is easily possible to generate a future image of a performance situation that is also associated with negative emotions. This is the connection between performance enhancement and psychological trauma. Using EMDR, we desensitise i.e. remove the negative emotions from the future images as well as the past ones. The result is that the individual 'sees' themselves succeeding but also is unable to generate the negative - 'performance-interfering' emotions. Even better, it 'feels' convincing as well. The following is an example of both a psychological trauma and performance enhancement combined:
A 38 year old equestrian sportswoman was riding her horse on a country lane when a car, travelling at speed, came round a bend in the road. Although a collision was avoided, the horse stepped backwards suddenly, unseating the rider and both horse and rider fell, the rider being injured by the falling horse. Later, once the physical injuries had healed, the sportswoman attended for the successful treatment of her traumatic memories. She was nevertheless adamant that she would never get on a horse again. She was prepared however to see if further treatment might alter things...
Treatment now switched to an imaginary scenario where the sportswoman could see herself getting onto her horse at the stable. She became hugely anxious at even imagining this, but with relatively little EMDR the anxiety disappeared. Further images followed and repeated the process of erasing the negative emotions from their images. Images now seemed convincing to the sportswoman and she asked whether images of entering a dressage competition could be tackled in the same way. Of course they were and to her surprise during the therapy she identified a minor adjustment to her riding style that she hadn't even considered before the riding trauma. She realised this adjustment would improve her performance and she felt re-energised to enter competitions. So not only was she 'rehabilitated' back to riding and competitions but her performance - at least in her mind, was better than before. A few weeks later after physically practising the visual images and their adjustments, she entered her first competition for almost three years. She was obviously elated to win a silver medal, yet quietly she expected it.
If you would like to discuss a possible referral please contact us or email us at help@davidblore.co.uk for further information, and don't worry - you don't need to have a trauma first so as to improve your performance! You may also like to read our Positive Therapy information page.
To find out about our other services please click on any of the tabs shown in the 'Services' menu.