Computer-Aided Emotional
Restructuring for aspergers Syndrome
Part - 3
Did you ever have a dream in which you knew it was a dream while you were
actually dreaming? This is a lucid dream (LaBerge, 1985). It is the closest
natural state to that generated by CAER. In a lucid dream, you are on the
edge of volitional control of the dream. Sometimes you can guide the dream,
and sometimes you cannot. The CAER state is like the lucid dream, but a
little more conscious. In CAER you are enough more conscious that you can
guide the dream wherever you need to.
What to think about
In CAER, the primary focus with HFA children are the unpleasant feelings that are triggered by social situations. These feelings
keep the child from being able to use the social skills that they have. When
the child's anxiety is alleviated, he can learn and apply social
skills more readily.
When the child thinks about negative, emotionally loaded events, he will
experience the emotions attached to that image, only not as strong. After a
while, the emotional response to the imagery weakens and eventually
vanishes. Concerns that formerly elicited strong emotional responses become
boring and take effort to remember. Once the bad feelings are gone,
the images are more distant and emotionally benign.
Following CAER, children are more apt to feel more comfortable and thus be able to use the social skills they have learned.
What makes effective
The active ingredients in and EMD/R are not new. The three active ingredients in CAER treatment are:
1) Deep relaxation
2) Vivid imagery
3)
Juxtaposition of these two processes to extinguish the feelings produced by
the images.
Continue -Computer-Aided Emotional Restructuring
