What Is the Flash Technique? A Gentler Entry Into Trauma Processing
Beneath the Surface Journal • Self • Flash Technique
What Is the Flash Technique?
A gentler entry into trauma processing.
You do not have to stare directly at the memory for the work to begin.
Watch first
Trauma work does not have to begin with maximum intensity.
This 60–90 second introduction explains the central distinction: the target is identified, but you are not asked to stay immersed in its most distressing details.
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You may want relief from a distressing memory while another part of you wants as much distance from it as possible. Even the thought of discussing the event may bring dread, numbness, shutdown, rapid agreement, distraction, or the urge to leave the subject alone.
That response is not evidence that you are unwilling to heal.
Sometimes distance is the protection that made continuing possible.
The Flash Technique is a clinician-guided intervention intended to reduce the disturbance associated with a memory while minimizing sustained conscious attention to its most painful content (Manfield et al., 2017; Manfield et al., 2024).
The target is identified, but it is not repeatedly narrated or held in continuous awareness. Most conscious attention remains with something positive and engaging while the therapist guides a structured process and later checks whether the target carries the same level of disturbance (Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024).
Flash is not a promise that trauma work will feel effortless, and it is not a substitute for assessment. Its purpose is more precise: to create a possible route toward change when direct, prolonged focus on the memory feels too activating.
At a glance
Four ideas to hold before going deeper.
Enough information is gathered to identify and monitor the memory without requiring detailed retelling.
Most conscious attention remains with a positive engaging focus rather than the disturbing material.
The therapist returns to the target briefly to assess whether its current disturbance has shifted.
Research has expanded, but the evidence base remains smaller and more methodologically mixed than full EMDR therapy.
These descriptions synthesize the published clinical procedure and current research literature (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023; Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2017; Manfield et al., 2024).
The foundation
What is the Flash Technique?
The Flash Technique, often shortened to Flash or FT, was developed by Philip Manfield, PhD, and introduced in the peer-reviewed literature with Joan Lovett, Lewis Engel, and David Manfield (Manfield et al., 2017).
Its first published description presented Flash as a strategy used during the preparation phase of EMDR therapy. The clinical aim was to lower the emotional intensity of highly disturbing memories so that later trauma work might become more tolerable (Manfield et al., 2017).
Researchers and clinicians have since examined Flash as an adjunct to EMDR, as a focused intervention, in individual and group formats, in person and online, and with different populations. Those uses are not automatically interchangeable, and the treatment plan still depends on training, assessment, informed consent, and clinical purpose (Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024; Savaş et al., 2026; Yaşar et al., 2022).
Flash is a clinical method, not a social-media exercise.
This article explains the structure and research without reproducing the treatment protocol. Reading it is not the same as receiving assessment, preparation, or care from a clinician trained to respond if distress, dissociation, shutdown, or unexpected material emerges.
The central distinction
Why can Flash feel different from direct trauma processing?
Standard EMDR therapy asks the client to bring selected elements of a target into awareness within a complete eight-phase treatment structure. Flash emerged as a different way of approaching a disturbing target, initially during EMDR preparation (Manfield et al., 2017; Shapiro, 2018).
Flash changes where conscious attention spends most of its time. The target is identified and monitored, but the client is discouraged from dwelling on it. Attention is deliberately organized around a positive engaging focus while the clinician guides the process (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023; Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024).
This does not make Flash “trauma therapy without contact.” It means the contact is limited, purposeful, and structured differently. The client still needs enough awareness of the target for the therapist to assess what is changing.
The high-level map
What happens in Flash, without teaching the protocol?
The sequence below is a conceptual orientation, not a set of self-treatment instructions. A trained clinician makes decisions about screening, preparation, pacing, repetition, interruption, closure, and what should happen next (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023; Manfield et al., 2017; Manfield et al., 2024).
Assess & Identify
The therapist evaluates clinical fit and helps identify the target without requiring a detailed narrative.
Engage
The client places conscious attention on a positive engaging focus that feels absorbing and accessible.
Guide
The therapist uses the trained Flash procedure while monitoring presence, responsiveness, and distress.
Recheck & Integrate
The target is briefly reassessed, and the therapist determines whether to continue, pause, close, or shift the plan.
The simplicity is visible. The clinical judgment is not.
Responsible use includes target selection, informed consent, monitoring, response to dysregulation, closure, and decisions about whether Flash should lead into EMDR, another therapy method, or no further processing that day.
The source of engagement
What is a positive engaging focus?
A positive engaging focus, sometimes abbreviated as PEF, is something that naturally captures attention and carries a positive, playful, absorbing, or pleasantly interesting quality (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023; Manfield et al., 2024).
It is broader than a single “positive image.” Depending on the person, it might involve a memory, activity, interest, story, piece of music, humorous idea, creative topic, or imagined experience. The important question is not whether it looks positive to someone else. It is whether it reliably engages this client without introducing a different layer of distress or complexity (Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024).
You do not have to manufacture happiness.
The focus should not become another demand to “think positively” about trauma. Its role is to provide enough genuine engagement that the client is not consciously dwelling on the disturbing memory throughout the process.
- It should be personally engaging rather than clinically impressive.
- It should feel accessible enough to return to without strain.
- It should not require denying what happened.
- It can be changed when it stops holding attention or becomes emotionally complicated.
The emphasis on positive engagement also fits a broader clinical principle: healing is not only the reduction of distress. It can include recovering access to curiosity, interest, play, and the experience of being present with something other than threat.
A common question
Does Flash avoid the memory completely?
No. The target still needs to be identified and monitored.
The distinction is that the client is generally discouraged from actively dwelling on, replaying, or repeatedly describing the memory during the central portion of the procedure. Contact is brief and clinically purposeful rather than sustained (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023; Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024).
This matters because avoidance and pacing are not the same thing. Avoidance leaves the memory entirely outside the treatment plan. Clinical pacing acknowledges that the memory matters while adjusting how much direct access is required at a particular point in treatment.
Distance can be part of treatment without becoming permanent disconnection.
If the target cannot be identified without significant destabilization, or if the client cannot remain sufficiently oriented to the present, the therapist may need to slow down, strengthen preparation, or choose a different intervention.
Related, not identical
Is the Flash Technique the same as EMDR?
Flash emerged within the EMDR community and was first described as an EMDR preparation strategy, but it is not the complete standard eight-phase EMDR protocol by itself (Manfield et al., 2017; Shapiro, 2018).
Lower-intensity target contact
- Uses a positive engaging focus.
- Minimizes sustained conscious attention to the target.
- May be used before fuller EMDR processing or as a focused intervention.
- Does not by itself represent all eight phases of EMDR treatment.
A complete treatment architecture
- Includes history, preparation, assessment, processing, closure, and reevaluation.
- May use open, contained, or restricted processing according to clinical need.
- Addresses past experiences, present triggers, and future responses.
- Has a substantially larger evidence base, especially for PTSD.
The Flash description is supported by Brouwers et al., 2021, Manfield et al., 2017, and Manfield et al., 2024. The standard EMDR structure and PTSD evidence are supported by American Psychological Association, 2025 and Shapiro, 2018.
A clinician may use Flash as one part of EMDR preparation, integrate it into a broader trauma treatment plan, or determine that standard EMDR or another approach is a better fit.
The evidence
What does the research currently suggest?
The Flash research base has grown beyond its earliest case reports. It now includes controlled experimental work, randomized trials in selected populations, group interventions, repeated-measures studies, clinical reports, and theoretical papers (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023; Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024; Savaş et al., 2026; Yaşar et al., 2022).
That growth is meaningful, but the studies vary substantially in design, sample, population, delivery format, comparison condition, number of sessions, and follow-up. The most accurate summary is that the findings are promising and still developing.
Four case examples introduced the method.
Manfield and colleagues described Flash as a preparation-phase strategy intended to reduce the intensity of memories that felt difficult to approach directly. The paper offered four clinical examples and explicitly called for further study (Manfield et al., 2017).
Flash and abbreviated EMDR produced similar reductions.
In a nonclinical sample of 60 participants with aversive autobiographical memories, Brouwers, de Jongh, and Matthijssen found no between-condition difference in reductions in emotionality and vividness. Participants rated Flash as more pleasant (Brouwers et al., 2021).
This study did not establish equivalence for diagnosed PTSD or complex clinical presentations.
Selected trauma-related outcomes improved after traffic accidents.
Yaşar and colleagues compared Flash with a stress-management module among people who had experienced traffic accidents. Flash showed statistically significant advantages on anxiety, intrusion, avoidance, total traumatic stress, and psychological quality of life; several other outcomes did not differ significantly between groups (Yaşar et al., 2022).
Brief practicum studies reported substantial disturbance reduction.
Across four similar repeated-measures studies involving 654 participants and 813 Flash experiences, Manfield and colleagues reported large average reductions in disturbance and two slight increases in disturbance. Because the studies did not provide the controls of a clinical randomized trial, the authors described the findings as preliminary (Manfield et al., 2024).
Researchers have studied varied groups and concerns.
Published work has included low-intensity delivery by prelicensed student clinicians, adolescents with depression, and adolescents with test anxiety. These studies expand the populations being examined, but many remain small, uncontrolled, or focused on highly specific groups (Gustavson et al., 2023; Inci Izmir & Çitil Akyol, 2024; Çitil Akyol & Inci Izmir, 2025).
Online Flash and online CBT both improved outcomes in one medical sample.
In a randomized trial involving patients with breast cancer, internet-based CBT and internet-based EMDR-Flash were both associated with improvement in traumatic stress, fear of recurrence, anxiety, and depression. Changes did not differ significantly between the two groups (Savaş et al., 2026).
This supports Flash as a possible option in that setting, not as a superior treatment.
Promising does not mean proven for every person or problem. A large effect in a small or uncontrolled study can overestimate what will occur in routine clinical care. Stronger conclusions require replication, adequately powered clinical trials, consistent protocols, comparison with established treatments, adverse-event monitoring, and longer follow-up. A published three-arm study protocol is directly comparing Flash, EMDR 2.0, and standard EMDR in people diagnosed with PTSD, which illustrates the comparative questions still being tested (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023).
What remains uncertain
How does Flash work?
Researchers have proposed several explanations. These include working-memory effects, brief or limited access to the target, memory reconsolidation and prediction error, and the broaden-and-build effects of positive emotion (Perez-Strumolo, 2024; Wong, 2021).
Those models are useful for generating research questions. They are not yet a single, settled account of what happens for every client.
The procedure may reduce current memory-related disturbance.
Multiple studies report reductions in subjective distress, trauma-related symptoms, or the vividness and emotionality of disturbing memories in selected samples (Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024; Savaş et al., 2026; Yaşar et al., 2022).
One brain mechanism has been definitively proven.
Claims that Flash predictably “rewires the brain,” completes memory reconsolidation, or works through one specific neural pathway go beyond the current evidence.
A treatment can show clinical promise before researchers fully understand its mechanism. Scientific responsibility requires keeping outcome findings and mechanism hypotheses separate.
The client experience
What might change after Flash?
Across published reports and studies, people have described a target as:
- farther away or less immediate;
- less vivid, emotionally charged, or physically activating;
- more clearly connected to the past;
- easier to think about without becoming consumed by it;
- changed in meaning, perspective, or personal relevance.
These are possible responses, not guaranteed outcomes. Other people notice only a modest shift, no immediate change, or the emergence of another linked concern. A reduction in a disturbance rating does not automatically mean that a complex trauma network, relationship pattern, diagnosis, or current life problem has been resolved (Brouwers et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024; Yaşar et al., 2022).
Feeling less disturbance is an outcome. Integration is a larger process.
The therapist still considers present triggers, beliefs, body responses, behavior, relationships, current safety, and what the client wants to be able to do differently. Flash may open the door to that work; it does not automatically complete all of it.
Clinical pacing
Preparation still matters.
The lower-intensity design of Flash does not remove the need for responsible trauma assessment. Published protocols and studies still place the procedure inside a structured clinical context (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023; Manfield et al., 2017; Manfield et al., 2024). Before using it, a clinician may consider:
- the client’s current safety and stability;
- the nature and timing of the target;
- dissociation, shutdown, flooding, or loss of present orientation;
- medical, substance-use, or crisis concerns that affect treatment;
- the client’s ability to communicate a pause or stop;
- support available after the session;
- whether Flash fits the broader treatment plan.
Informed consent should include what Flash is, what it is not, what the client may notice, how distress will be monitored, and what the therapist will do if the process becomes too activating.
Minimal distress is an intention of the method, not a guarantee made to the client.
A clear stop signal, attention to nonverbal changes, and adequate closure remain important. If a client becomes overwhelmed, detached, confused, or unable to continue, the therapist should respond to the person rather than mechanically finish the procedure.
Boundaries and myths
What the Flash Technique is not.
Not memory erasure
The goal is not to delete the event or make you believe it did not matter.
Not forced positive thinking
The positive engaging focus does not reinterpret trauma as good or require gratitude for harm.
Not guaranteed to be painless
Flash is designed to reduce sustained distress, but difficult emotion or activation can still occur.
Not the entire EMDR protocol
It can be related to or integrated with EMDR without replacing the full eight-phase treatment structure.
Not an instant cure
A rapid change in one target does not establish resolution of every linked memory, symptom, or relational pattern.
Not appropriate for everyone at every moment
Another intervention, stabilization, medical care, crisis support, or slower treatment sequence may fit better.
These boundaries reflect the distinction between a focused intervention and a complete treatment plan (Alting van Geusau et al., 2023; Manfield et al., 2017; Manfield et al., 2024; Shapiro, 2018).
Who may consider it
When might a therapist consider Flash?
Flash may be considered when a specific memory or image remains disturbing and the client wants trauma-focused work, but direct or sustained attention to the target feels especially difficult, frightening, shame-laden, or activating (Manfield et al., 2017; Manfield et al., 2024).
It may be explored when:
- anticipatory fear is preventing the person from approaching a target;
- the memory feels too intense to hold directly for long;
- the client becomes flooded, avoidant, numb, or highly self-protective around trauma work;
- the therapist wants to reduce initial disturbance before another phase of treatment;
- a focused, lower-intensity entry point fits the agreed-upon clinical goal.
These are reasons to assess Flash, not automatic indications to use it. Complex trauma, dissociation, ongoing danger, severe instability, or multiple linked targets may require a more gradual treatment plan even when Flash is included. Published clinical reports involving dissociative presentations should not be treated as proof of universal suitability (Wong, 2019).
You do not earn treatment by tolerating more distress.
A clinically appropriate pace protects consent and allows the therapist to distinguish productive engagement from compliance, collapse, or a protective response that has gone unheard.
Treatment container
Can Flash be used in weekly therapy or an intensive?
Flash has been delivered in brief, repeated, individual, group, in-person, and online formats in the published literature, but format alone does not establish fit for a particular client (Manfield et al., 2021; Manfield et al., 2024; Savaş et al., 2026).
More time between sessions
Weekly work may allow additional observation, stabilization, relationship-building, and integration before the next target or treatment decision.
More uninterrupted clinical time
In a longer session, Flash may be used as one part of preparation or target work, followed by breaks, reassessment, and further processing only when clinically appropriate.
The length of the appointment does not determine readiness. An intensive should not be used to compress work that would be safer in a slower format.
Before beginning
Questions to ask a Flash-trained therapist.
- What training have you completed in the Flash Technique?
- Are you also trained or certified in EMDR, and how do you distinguish the two?
- How do you assess whether Flash fits this target and this stage of treatment?
- What happens before the Flash procedure begins?
- How will I communicate that I need to pause or stop?
- How do you respond to shutdown, dissociation, flooding, or increased distress?
- How will we measure whether the target has changed?
- What happens if another memory or reaction emerges?
- How will Flash connect with the rest of my treatment plan?
The technique should not be more important than the therapeutic relationship, the treatment plan, or the client’s ability to remain an active participant.
The deeper purpose
Light is not the opposite of serious trauma work.
Trauma can teach the mind and body that approaching a memory requires falling back into it. Flash offers a different possibility: the memory can be acknowledged while attention remains anchored in something alive, engaging, and present.
That does not minimize the depth of what happened. It changes the conditions under which the experience is approached.
Sometimes light is not an escape from the depth. It is the orientation that makes approach possible.
The goal is not to stay at the surface forever. It is to enter only as much depth as can be held with consent, responsiveness, and present-day choice.
That is the movement from avoidance or overwhelm toward contact that remains connected to agency.
Continue the opening collection
When the memory becomes a pattern between two people.
Distressing experiences do not only return as images or body states. They can also return through the meanings we assign to distance, conflict, silence, reassurance, rejection, control, pursuit, withdrawal, and the fear of losing connection.
The Childhood Trauma That Shaped Your Attachment Style Without Consent
Explore how abuse, neglect, emotional absence, criticism, and unrepaired rupture can become present-day expectations about safety, closeness, power, and repair.
Continue to the attachment articleExplore the clinical work
Begin with the approach that preserves choice.
Learn more about trauma therapy, EMDR, the Flash Technique, and the treatment containers currently available.
About the author
Jillian Ellison, LMFT 156597
Jillian is an EMDRIA Certified Therapist™ providing trauma-focused psychotherapy to adults and relationship systems in California. Her foundational EMDR training was completed through EMDR Consulting’s EMDRIA-approved program, with additional training related to complex trauma, moral injury, crisis response, childhood sexual abuse, protective parts, and advanced use of the Flash Technique.
Review Jillian’s clinical authorityThis article is educational and is not individualized treatment, diagnosis, crisis support, or a substitute for consultation with a qualified healthcare professional. It intentionally does not reproduce the Flash Technique protocol and should not be used as a self-treatment guide. Reading this article does not establish a therapist–client relationship. Citations identify the source of public clinical and research claims; they do not imply that every finding applies to every person or clinical situation.
References and further reading
Alting van Geusau, V. V. P., de Jongh, A., Nuijs, M. D., Brouwers, T. C., Moerbeek, M., & Matthijssen, S. J. M. A. (2023). The effectiveness, efficiency, and acceptability of EMDR vs. EMDR 2.0 vs. the Flash Technique in the treatment of patients with PTSD: Study protocol for the ENHANCE randomized controlled trial. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, Article 1278052. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1278052
American Psychological Association. (2025). Clinical practice guideline for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults. https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline
Brouwers, T. C., de Jongh, A., & Matthijssen, S. J. M. A. (2021). The effects of the Flash Technique compared to those of an abbreviated eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy protocol on the emotionality and vividness of aversive memories. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 741163. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.741163
Çitil Akyol, C., & Inci Izmir, S. B. (2025). Exploring the impact of Flash Technique on test anxiety among adolescents. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30(3), 735–751. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591045251329437
Gustavson, K., Wong, S.-L., & Le, D. (2023). Research on low-intensity Flash Technique trauma intervention by prelicensed student clinicians. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 17(2), 54–69. https://doi.org/10.1891/EMDR-2022-0059
Inci Izmir, S. B., & Çitil Akyol, C. (2024). EMDR Flash Technique in adolescents with depression: A twelve-week follow-up study. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 29(3), 949–965. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591045241247701
Manfield, P., Lovett, J., Engel, L., & Manfield, D. (2017). Use of the Flash Technique in EMDR therapy: Four case examples. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 11(4), 195–205. https://doi.org/10.1891/1933-3196.11.4.195
Manfield, P. E., Engel, L., Greenwald, R., & Bullard, D. G. (2021). Flash Technique in a scalable low-intensity group intervention for COVID-19-related stress in healthcare providers. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 15(2), 127–139. https://doi.org/10.1891/EMDR-D-20-00053
Manfield, P. E., Taylor, G., Dornbush, E., Engel, L., & Greenwald, R. (2024). Preliminary evidence for the acceptability, safety, and efficacy of the Flash Technique. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, Article 1273704. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1273704
Perez-Strumolo, L. (2024). The effectiveness of the Flash Technique is explained by the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 18(3), 103–117. https://doi.org/10.1891/EMDR-2024-0015
Savaş, E., Gündoğmuş, İ., Kınık, Ç., Kubilay, D., Kavakçı, Ö., & Yaşar, A. B. (2026). A randomized controlled trial of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) and EMDR-Flash Technique (iEMDR-FT) for improving mental health in breast cancer patients. Current Psychology, 45(1), Article 79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-025-08723-w
Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
Wong, S.-L. (2019). Flash Technique group protocol for highly dissociative clients in a homeless shelter: A clinical report. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 13(1), 20–31. https://doi.org/10.1891/1933-3196.13.1.20
Wong, S.-L. (2021). A model for the Flash Technique based on working memory and neuroscience research. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 15(3), 174–184. https://doi.org/10.1891/EMDR-D-21-00048
Yaşar, A. B., Konuk, E., Kavakçı, Ö., Uygun, E., Gündoğmuş, İ., Taygar, A. S., & Uludağ, E. (2022). A randomized-controlled trial of EMDR Flash Technique on traumatic symptoms, depression, anxiety, stress, and life of quality with individuals who have experienced a traffic accident. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, Article 845481. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.845481
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