Accelerated Resolution Therapy in the DC Metro Area
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a short-term therapy that helps you process painful memories and reduce the emotional or physical distress connected to them. ART can support healing from trauma, grief, relationship conflict, betrayal, and past experiences that may be affecting intimacy, sexuality, or connection. ART can be incorporated into individual, couples, or sex therapy.
Why Get Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) In DC?
ART can be used to help process painful memories and unhelpful beliefs that affect your ability to experience emotional or physical intimacy. For example, you may have had negative experiences with a past partner that surface when you move towards sexual intimacy, making it difficult to feel safe or present. Or perhaps unresolved hurt from your relationship feels impossible to shake, even after you and your partner have tried to repair things.
Art can change how your mind and body respond to these memories, so you can engage more freely in your relationships without being held back by the past.
Here’s how ART can benefit you:
Reprocessing Trauma
ART helps change how your brain stores distressing memories, reducing the emotional and physical responses connected to them. This may include traumatic events, childhood experiences, non-consensual touch, relationship betrayals, or anything creating fear, shame, or negative beliefs around intimacy.
Creating Resolution
ART empowers you to create your own closure around painful past experiences, giving you more agency over how you experience what happened and what comes next.
Reducing Anxiety Around Sex and Intimacy
ART can help reduce anxiety around sex, intimacy, desire, arousal, or performance by changing how your mind and body respond to distressing memories or past experiences.
Expanding Capacity for Intimacy
Once distressing memories are reprocessed, you may find that you have more emotional freedom and energy to cultivate the relational and sexual experiences you desire.
Who is Accelerated Resolution Therapy for?
Accelerated Resolution Therapy is for anyone ready to change the way they experience painful or intrusive memories so they can reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the emotional and physical distress connected to them. ART allows you to keep the facts of what happened while changing how your mind and body respond to the memory. ART is a short-term, structured therapy that can be used as a standalone treatment or alongside ongoing talk therapy.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy can help you address:
Acute trauma. This may include assault, accidents, violence, natural disasters, or other distressing events that continue to feel emotionally or physically activating long after they occurred.
Childhood and developmental Trauma. ART can help reprocess experiences from earlier in life, including abuse, neglect, loss, separation, family dysfunction, or other experiences that shaped negative beliefs about yourself, others, relationships, or intimacy.
Symptoms associated With PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). ART can help reprocess traumatic memories and reduce symptoms such as flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, avoidance, heightened anxiety, or strong emotional and physical reactions to reminders of what happened.
Anxiety or depression symptoms. Sometimes anxiety or depression symptoms are connected to unresolved memories, painful experiences, or negative beliefs about yourself. ART can help reduce the emotional weight connected to these memories and experiences.
Repetitive negative beliefs or thoughts about yourself. The EMDR process specifically targets “negative cognitions” that are untrue (such as “I’m unlovable” or “I can’t have pleasure”).
Unresolved relationship conflict and betrayal. ART can support those carrying hurt, anger, mistrust, or unresolved pain from past or current relationship experiences. This may include infidelity, relational trauma, or memories that continue to affect emotional connection, trust, intimacy, or sexuality.
Grief or loss. ART can support those navigating grief or loss by helping reprocess the memories and emotions associated with the loss, creating more space for healing and acceptance.
Challenges with intimacy and sexuality. ART can help address past experiences, negative beliefs, or physiological responses that affect desire, arousal, performance, pleasure, or emotional closeness. This may include anxiety around sex, psychological erectile dysfunction, performance anxiety, negative memories about past sexual experiences, or relationship issues connected to past infidelity.
Can you use ART for relationship therapy or sex therapy?
Yes, ART can be used to support sexual intimacy and relationship connection. When it comes to sex therapy, ART might be helpful for you if you experience:
Anxiety and depression that affect libido
Psychological erectile dysfunction
Performance anxiety during sex
Negative memories about past sexual experiences
Relationship issues or memories related to past infidelity
Challenges with desire and arousal
And ART can also be used in couples therapy. ART can help partners reprocess painful memories and relational trauma that continue to affect trust, connection, and intimacy. This approach can be particularly supportive for couples when past experiences, within or outside the relationship, are creating distance or blocking repair.
What can you expect in Accelerated Resolution Therapy?
You’ll always begin with a thorough assessment at the start of any therapeutic process. If your therapist believes ART would be supportive for you, they will integrate it into your individual or couples therapy. Our approach is to use ART as a tool for ongoing therapeutic support, introduced at the right time and based on your needs.
With Accelerated Resolution Therapy, you can expect:
Initial assessment: Your therapist will conduct a 60-minute initial assessment to understand your history, current challenges, and goals for therapy. They will explain the ART process and plan your session based on your needs.
ART process: A typical ART session runs about 90 minutes and follows a structured protocol using rapid horizontal eye movements, visualizations, and positive images you choose to help shift negative sensations, emotions, and images from the past.
Memory reconsolidation: After an ART session, your brain continues processing for about 6 hours. You will be asked to avoid alcohol and other mind-altering substances, unless prescribed to you, for at least 48 to 72 hours to support the best results.
Follow-up Session: You and your therapist will assess the results of the ART session, discuss any changes you noticed, and plan next steps for your ongoing therapy.
Throughout this process, you’ll have the support of a compassionate, experienced, and effective therapist.
Meet Your ART Therapist
Alexis Logan, (she/her) works with individuals and couples navigating intimacy, sexuality, communication, and relationship challenges. Alexis has completed Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) basic training and can support clients in addressing painful memories, relational hurts, and past experiences that may be affecting emotional connection, trust, or sexual intimacy. She warmly welcomes clients of all orientations, genders, and relationship structures, including polyamorous, CNM, kink, and BDSM communities.
Alexis Logan, LICSW
Why choose the Center for Intimacy and Relationships?
We specialize in relationships and sex therapy using a variety of modalities, so you get the most out of your therapy. Here, we weave together individual therapy, couples therapy, and sex therapy with accelerated resolution therapy, among many other tools.
At the Center for Intimacy and Relationships, we have:
Specialized training: Our therapists are trained in both ART and sex therapy, allowing us to provide a comprehensive approach to your concerns.
Holistic perspective: We incorporate the emotional, psychological, and relational aspects of sexual health, ensuring a well-rounded therapeutic experience.
Compassionate support: We prioritize your comfort and healing, guiding you through sensitive issues with empathy and respect.
We are a boutique psychotherapy practice offering customized therapy services, including sex therapy for couples, tailored to you and your goals. Here, you’ll receive care from a warm and welcoming team of clinicians committed to the therapeutic process, helping you harness your healing and growth.
Offering both in-person and online therapy for busy DC professionals, we can meet you where you are on your schedule. Contact us now to schedule a free video consultation.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy FAQs
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ART is considered a short-term therapy and often requires 1 to 5 sessions to address a specific issue. The number of sessions depends on your history, goals, and the memories or concerns you want to work on.
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ART is very similar to EMDR in that both approaches use eye movements to support memory reprocessing. ART follows its own structured protocol and focuses on shifting the images, sensations, and emotional responses connected to painful memories. ART also uses visualization and image replacement techniques to help clients keep the facts of what happened while changing how the memory feels in the mind and body. Both are effective ways to treat trauma.
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No. With ART, you do not have to share every detail of a painful memory in order to work on it. Your therapist will guide you through the process while allowing you to share only what feels necessary and supportive.
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No. ART does not erase what happened. The goal is to help you keep the facts of the memory while changing how your mind and body respond to it, so the memory feels less emotionally or physically distressing.
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Image replacement means you will be guided to shift distressing images connected to the past and replace them with positive images of your choice. This can help change the emotional and physical response connected to the memory, while allowing you to remain in control of the images you choose.
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Yes. If you already have a therapist you would like to keep, ART may be used as a complement to your ongoing talk therapy. With your permission, your ART therapist can work alongside your current therapist to support your care.
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To get started, fill out our contact form. We’ll be in touch within 48 business hours. We start all potential clients with a free 15- to 30-minute video consultation to see if we’re a good fit to work together. And we are happy to refer you to one of our trusted colleagues if it’s not a good match.