What is ART (Accelerated Resolution Therapy)?

Juanita Gnanapragasam
2 days ago
5 min read

Welcome to our (sort of) monthly blog ‘Ask an Occupational Therapist’ which attempts to answer all of your🔥 burning🔥occupational therapy-related questions.

It’s me again, your friendly neighbourhood Occupational Therapist, Juanita. No, I haven’t gone all esoteric on you with this blog post. Although I appreciate art, I’m talking specifically about Accelerated Resolution Therapy.

A piece of abstract art using a collage of brightly coloured paper cut into various shapes centres around the image of a single eye placed over the forehead of a face. The image is intended to play on the acronym 'ART' and the use of eye-movements within that therapeutic modality.

What is Accelerated Resolution Therapy?

Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a form of psychotherapy developed in 2008 and is recognized as evidence-based therapy by the American Psychological Association (APA). It uses techniques including rapid eye movements, guided exposure, and image rescripting to help the brain recondition stressful memories and reduce the physical and emotional reactions tied to them.

Here's the really cool part: ART uses something called Voluntary Image Replacement. This is where you replace the distressing mental images in your mind with more positive or neutral ones that you choose. So, you keep the facts of what happened, but you lose the gut-wrenching visuals that cause nightmares, give you anxiety, or just make you feel distressed. Think of it like editing the horror movie playing on loop in your head and swapping it out for something you actually want to watch. While we're changing the memories we're simultaneously working on processing the negative physical sensations you feel when you think about what happened. Ultimately, the goal is that you don’t feel held back by your trauma.

How does it work?

Here's a simplified breakdown of what happens in an ART session:

Get grounded. Your therapist helps you relax and identify one specific memory to work on. Don’t worry, while we start with one memory, as the therapy progresses we work on other related memories or experiences.
Visualize, but briefly. You call up the memory or distressing image in your mind while your eyes follow your therapist's hand moving side to side (yes, like a slow pendulum). One of ART's most unique and appreciated features is that you don't have to tell your therapist what happened. Clients are guided using a script to replace unpleasant imagery without needing to verbalize more details of their painful experiences than they feel comfortable sharing.
Let the eye movements do their job. The key to ART's efficiency is believed to lie in its use of natural memory reconsolidation, or the minor modification of memories every time we recall them. ART exploits this natural occurrence by activating a memory, changing its emotional weight, and "reconsolidating" it within a discrete window of time, essentially locking in the changes in a more permanent way.
Describe the physical symptoms you feel while you visualize your memory. Your therapist uses rapid eye movements to help move negative physical symptoms related to your experience out of your body to help relieve discomfort.
Replace the images of the memory. With your therapist's guidance, you swap out the painful image in your mind for something positive, something you choose.
Your therapist checks the work. At the end of the session, the therapist checks that you can access your original memory without major distress and are able to shift to your rescripted version.

It's important to remember: with ART, you're always in control. You decide what images you replace, and you choose what (if anything) to share with your therapist. Sessions are typically 50–75 minutes; it's best not to rush or cut them short. ART can also be used alongside other therapies and treatments, including medication. Best of all, ART helps clients process trauma in 1–5 sessions, with an average of 2-3 sessions. In fact, most people I’ve worked with walk away feeling noticeably better within just one appointment. But again, this is dependent on the type of negative experience or trauma you want to work on.

A person with long, brown hair in a white shirt sits in front of a person with long blond hair, also in a white shirt. The brunette is in the midst of waving two fingers in front of the blonde's face so their eyes can track her fingers as part of the Accelerated Resolution Therapy process.

What’s the difference between ART and EDMR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing )?

This is the question I get asked most often! Both ART and EMDR use eye movements to help the brain process trauma, and both are evidence-based. But they work quite differently. Here's the breakdown:

	ART	EMDR
Structure	Highly structured, directive protocol	More flexible; follows the client's associations
Method	ART works by helping people change how a difficult memory looks and feels in their mind	EMDR uses a structured, multi-phase approach that helps the brain reprocess the memory that can also shift thinking patterns
Focus of the Therapy	ART focuses more on changing the images and sensory experience of a memory	EMDR focuses more on how the memory affects thoughts and emotions
Processing Physical Symptoms & Bodily Sensations	In ART, your therapist regularly asks what you’re noticing in your body as the memory changes	In EMDR, body sensations are also important, and there’s a specific step where you scan your body to see if any distress is still there and process it
Session Count	Avg. 1–5 sessions	Typically 6–12+ sessions

The bottom line? Both are valuable tools. Some therapists even use ART to reduce immediate distress before beginning EMDR for deeper processing. It's not about which is "better" but rather, what's right for you.

Who should (and Shouldn't) do ART?

ART has been clinically used to treat anxiety, depression, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance use disorders, performance anxiety, poor self-esteem, relationship concerns, grief, job stressors, and pain management. Accelerated Resolution Therapy Research also supports its use for complicated grief, insomnia, and even cancer-related distress. Lots of research around ART and its uses in decreasing symptoms comes from folks living with PTSD, for this population, ART can be a highly effective treatment.

ART may be especially worth considering if:

You're not comfortable talking in detail about what happened to you;
You've tried other therapies and still feel stuck;
You have limited time or can't commit to weekly sessions (each ART session is designed to be a stand-alone treatment, making it a good option for someone who isn't able to attend sessions consistently);
Your distress is coming from visualizing the trauma that has happened to you.

Despite it's many applications, ART is not for everyone! A good therapist will always do an intake assessment first to ensure the modality is right for you.

ART is generally not recommended for people who are currently experiencing:

Active psychosis or severe reality-testing difficulties, as the imagery-based work may not be appropriate;
Uncontrolled seizures, severe migraines triggered by eye movements, or those who have had recent eye surgery;
Active substance use disorders;

If any of these apply to you, that doesn't mean you can't get effective help, it just means we'll work together to find the right approach for where you're at right now

Ready to Give It a Try?

If you're carrying something heavy, whether it's a trauma, a grief, a fear, or just a memory that won't leave you alone, ART might be exactly what you've been looking for. You deserve to feel better, and often, with ART it happens faster than you think.

If you think ACT is right for you, you can learn more about me and my practice here or complete our Online Intake process and get matched with me today!