Are your circuits flip-flopping?

Yesterday, we gave our first one-day EBT certification course for mental health professionals, and it was a huge success, but I'm left thinking about how to train therapists in advanced EBT quickly. Why? The pandemic causes us to encode so many intense reactive circuits ("5 Circuits") that we're going to burn out our healthcare workers if they don't 1) use EBT with their patients so patients rewire faster than using traditional talk therapy and 2) use EBT between sessions themselves.

Our population needs Certified EBT Providers because these circuits will "flip-flop" if a provider isn't coaching the person to use EBT effectively. When one of those 5 Circuits, encoded in stress overload/trauma, needs rewiring, the person's thinking brain goes offline and is apt to rewire the behavior, but not the emotional circuit. Case in point, "Susan" was in stress overload because she thought she had rewired her "Money Circuit," so she stopped ignoring her finances. It was a deep circuit born from severe financial deprivation as a child.

Anytime you rewire a circuit, it rewires the drive from an insecure attachment/ external solution to a secure attachment/internal solution. That's good, for it helps us automatically make good choices and naturally sustain them. Instead, Susan had rewired the behavior, not the emotional circuit, and her drive was to go to the other extreme, that is, being obsessed with money. The provider session involves "co-regulating" with the participant, enabling them to stay present to the intense emotions and rewire the drive, which stops the person from flip-flopping from one extreme to another.

How EBT helps people rewire faster

The purpose of EBT is to rewire faulty circuits, that is, stress-activating them so the wires shift. Without that stress activation and staying present to the emotions, our good habits are built on top of faulty wires, and as soon as stress comes our way, the good habits depart. People may feel better at first, but without that rewiring, they are walking on thin ice and vulnerable to recidivism.

Why therapists need EBT between sessions

To be a healer, you must connect emotionally with the patient, which means opening your brain to the circuits of the patient, who is usually in a stress overload state. That experience rewires the therapist's brain for reactivity. Even if they intend to stay removed or be empathetic but leave the session undamaged, the emotional brain has no walls. If the stress reactivity from the day's sessions is not processed emotionally before they sleep that night, their patient's faulty circuits will likely be encoded in their long-term memory.

We have a huge workforce of therapists that are booked up with appointments. Hence, a key topic at the one-day certification was about supporting therapists in becoming EBT Certified AND learning how to take those three minutes between sessions to spiral up. Let's appreciate that healthcare workers need EBT for their patients and their capacity to be true healers and Wired at One.

If your health professionals are not EBT Certified (www.ebtcertification.com), please tell them about EBT. They can help their patients better and create more joy in their own lives and the lives of their patients. We need therapists and they need EBT!