WHAT IS BWRT?

INTRODUCTION

Brain Working Recursive Therapy was developed from 2011 by Terence Watts in the UK and operates on the principle that our brains respond to events and make decisions even before we are physically aware of them. BWRT is consistent with the latest neuroscience developments, particularly limbic system functioning and the manner in which our brains process memory and emotion.

MECHANISM

BWRT has been designed to remove emotive responses from memories that are deeply troubling and create new, adaptive neural pathways that do not have the old undesirable emotional responses attached to it. Also known as memory reconsolidation, it relies on the brain's neuroplasticity that allows an emotional learning or schema stored in long-term implicit memory to be actually erased, not just overridden and suppressed by the learning of a preferred response. 

If a client is guided to actually dissolve the underlying emotional learning or schema generating his or her fear, for example, that fear would simply no longer arise. There is then nothing to counteract and no possibility of relapse. The fear ceases with no need for a counteractive process of teaching relaxation techniques or any other way of building up a non-anxious state. The psychotherapy extends the neural pathways so that the client’s brain knows the new patterns to use in future. Every new experience creates a new template. In fact, immediately after the psychotherapy is finished, the client can no longer feel the same emotional response to the usual trigger for their presenting symptom, no matter how hard they try.  

As a rule, the actual memory of an event remains, it is only the emotional response to the event that is altered. So, for example, the loss of a loved one will still be remembered but with less pain and a sense of acceptance. 

PROCESS AND DURATION

This therapy is largely content-free, using the client’s own thought processes to effect a release from the symptomatic pattern - and there is a strict protocol which ensures maximum effectiveness and safety. From this perspective the psychotherapy is much more private and less intrusive to patients. The psychotherapy is short in duration compared to traditional approaches. A simple fear or phobia can often be resolved in a single consultation, and other interventions seldomly exceed 4 – 6 sessions.

TREATMENT EFFECTIVENESS

BWRT psychotherapy is proven to be highly effective in most patients with:

• Grief and trauma, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, abuse and adjustment disorders.

• Anxiety and Phobias, including Generalised Anxiety Disorder, fears and panic attacks.

• Less than optimal functioning, including lack of self-confidence or motivation, relationship issues, and success inhibition.

• Affective disorders like depression.