Emotional Transformation Therapy (ETT)

ETT was developed in the mid-1990s by Steven Vazquez, as a revolutionary way approach to healing. It combines the power of light, color and rapid eye movements with traditional psychotherapy. The aim is to rewire our emotional responses at the neurological level.

Check out this link for some of the science: Emotional Transformation Therapy: Revolutionizing Mental Health.

After years of CBT and a year of EMDR, ETT changed the game. In only 4 sessions I went from being overwhelmed with sadness and anxiety to being what feels to me like well. I've had 1 session since a recent flare and will share the experiences here.

My therapist is Irma Mireles in Bedford, Texas. She does online as well as in-person therapy.

Let me say up front: this sounds like some kind of voodoo witchcraft and I was really skeptical. I do not understand it well but my results have been shockingly good.

During my first session, Irma said she felt that I was unable to get in touch with the grief of my ex-husband's death. She put me in front of the light box, a roughly 24" cube with black sides so that I saw only what she was projecting from her laptop. She had me do a relaxation exercise and then asked questions about his death. (He had an aggressive cancer that took him in 6 weeks, and I was his medical advocate. It was not pretty.) I talked about the things that were haunting me - his pain that was so difficult to control, the things I said and did that will never leave me. She asked me to look to the right, seeing the light mainly with my left eye and tell her how I felt: sympathy, helplessness. When I looked to the right, I felt good about what I had done for him. I took "a snapshot" of that feeling and then returned to center. I told Mark how I felt about the experience, and how sorry I was that he had suffered. And then I told him I'd always loved him. The relief was indescribable: I was both physically and emotionally lighter.

Our second session was a biofeedback exercise to help me break the ties binding me to my mother's criticism and judgments. She guided me to find and very, very slowly pull a "string" from my lower stomach, symbolically removing what bound me to her. We repeated several times, moving up to my heart. I thought it was ridiculous. The next time I spoke with my mother, it was as if she were a distant relative. I was no longer affected by her. AMAZING!

The 3rd session was the most impactful: We did a protocol on boundaries to stop my intense intrusive thoughts. She employed a large color board with red at the bottom and violet at the top. Most of our work was in the red/orange area. Sometimes I'd see a color that wasn't on the board - hot pink - and we'd do a reset. Near the end of the session, Irma asked me to look at the indigo section and I felt a distinct tab just above and between my eyebrows. When I told her this, she said indigo is associated with your third eye, and the place I indicated is where that is located. I can now drive on the highway without imagining dozens of catastrophes waiting for me at home. That experience will never leave me.

The 4th session is deeply personal: I asked Irma to help me to release my grief over the loss of my soul dog, Charlie. Back to the color box, for work I can best describe as a seance. We summoned him to join me. I thanked him for being in my life and told him it was unbearable to live without him. I looked into his brown eyes, hugged his neck and said goodbye. Now my memories of my sweet boy are good ones - sometimes emotional but no longer debilitating.

A year later, I am back in session with Irma after a major trigger from my mother. She put me back into the light box, and we did the look right/look left pattern a couple of times. When I looked right, I was angry, sad and felt helpless to control my reaction. Looking to the left, I had a revelation that I believe will be life-changing: I view her as a victim of my father, and that empathy is not serving me. We repeated a second round - looking right and then left. This time, when I looked to the left I realized that the reason I feel trauma memories at the base of my throat - as if I'm being choked from the inside - is that I have no voice with my mother. The physical stress is in my vocal chords. More work to do on both of these issues, but I believe they will be life-altering for me.

After an ETT session, I feel different. My brain is changing during the session, and I can feel the impact. There is a light emotional hangover, never more than a few hours after each session.