What is the RAP Technique?
Complex Trauma Treatment and the Rhythm and Processing Technique
The basic idea of the RAP technique, we gather the stress, we place the stress, we have our focus, we take an action while we’re attending to our focus and enjoy. And when we do that, we can end up reducing the stress relating to things in the past.
Hey everyone, how’s it going? This is me, David Archer.
I’m an EMDR therapy trainer, the developer of the rhythm and processing technique, and I am your psychotherapist trauma specialist for today. So what we’ll be doing is more of an educational thing about what is the rhythm and processing technique. So stay tuned.
The rhythm and processing technique is something that developed out of a need for helping people who have complex trauma, also people who had complex racial trauma and just identity-based stresses to heal their traumatic experiences when other approaches had a bit more difficulty. There are ways how trauma is sometimes going to be more of something that’s a felt sense, or there are ways that you don’t have the right words to describe what it is that took place, or that the words don’t do it justice.
And I noticed that sometimes just speaking about the problem wasn’t as efficient as being able to do things like EMDR therapy or being able to use somatic-based interventions.
And I also noticed that in some approaches, there would be a lot of fear or a lot of stress relating to processing the trauma. So that’s where the rhythm and processing technique came in. Let me just explain the basic idea.
Predictive Processing and Interrupting Stress
Last week I was meeting with one of my clients. This is a person who was going through some stresses because of their relationship with their mother. What we needed to do then is think of, well, what’s the memory or the specific event that’s really at the root of causing this discomfort? She was talking about how anytime she thought of her mother, it would bring her back to this specific event.
Even if her mother did something that was not really a stressful thing, she would think of this specific event or these feelings that would come up. So that’s the ideal situation where we bring in the rhythm and processing technique. You can look in my other videos about predictive processing because this is what this thing is all about.
If it is that when we think of the mother, or if we think of a trigger that relates to the mother, we are feeling this level of stress, it’s almost like a prediction. If you think of something that resembles the idea of the mother or resembles a trigger, then you might feel this sympathetic nervous system activation. There might be the stressful feeling that comes up, right? So we need to interrupt that prediction.
When the client is then thinking about the mother, immediately we move it out of awareness. And then after, we’re going to be thinking of something that’s very different from what the brain would predict. We’re thinking of, I don’t know, a video of the ocean floor.
You might see dolphins, you might see starfish, you might see lobsters. I don’t know, maybe, right? But the thing is, this is different from what the brain is predicting. The brain is predicting, you know what, if I think about my mother, I think about the stresses, I’m going to be drawn back into this experience in 1996.
Taking Action in the Present Moment
Well, we are then going to think of something that makes you feel very calm and then do an action that orients you to 2026, the date of this recording. And so while the person is attending to this video of the ocean floor, dolphins, whales, seals—and it doesn’t have to be that. I mean, it could just be dogs with hats, cats just purring.
We’re then going to take specific actions in that moment that are going to orient you to the present moment. These actions could be blinking one’s eyes. These actions could be tapping one’s fingers.
These actions could be just searching for a number. Once someone tells you to look for the number, you look for it. And then you continue looking at the focus.
And that is enough to help a person be able to be in the present, to increase precision weighting on the present moment and reduce the salience of the noise that is relating to the trauma. When you pair this experience of recalling the stress differently than you typically would, and then presenting what would be called a disconfirming experience or a prediction error, the brain then has to update itself in the present moment and be like, you know what? Actually, the prediction needs to be updated. When I think about this memory, it doesn’t need to be so scary because I’m actually in my therapist’s office right now.
I’m actually at home. I’m actually wearing my Crocs. You know, I’m here right now.
And back then there were no Crocs… My Crocs are upstairs. Anyways, the thing is that we want to take some actions that will make it so that a person can feel as if they’re in the present moment without feeling as if they’re being dragged into the past.
Cultivating a Revolutionary Joy
And so when a person is using the rhythm and processing technique, they are then able to feel joy at the same time while they’re reducing the importance the brain is putting on this past event. So what did we do with this client? We used the RAP technique. They watched this video.
There were times that we checked in with the stress. They watched the video. They would start to blink their eyes rapidly, like after a set amount of times, blinking three to four times after four to five seconds.
And then we do a round of that. We check in. Is the video okay? Video’s okay.
Let’s go another round. And so what do they do? They visualize vacuuming the stress, gathering the stress, containing it or placing it in a different place. And once that stress is no longer at the center of awareness, we switch on that video.
And then when I say the word RAP, they blink three times or a few times or one time or two times. I say the word RAP again and they blink again. They take their action again.
I say the word RAP again. They take their action while enjoying the whale, enjoying the animals and all this. And what is the result of reduction of stress in that moment? They are no longer in the past.
They’re busy enjoying what YouTube has provided for them. So the basic idea of the RAP technique, we gather the stress, we place the stress, we have our focus. We take an action while we’re attending to our focus and enjoy.
And when we do that, we can end up reducing the stress relating to things in the past, reducing the stress that we are carrying in the present and making it so that things feel a little bit more awesome. This is what I mean about cultivating a revolutionary joy. It is possible for us to heal doing the things we love.
A Culturally Responsive Approach
It is possible for us to heal with our favorite video games, with our favorite hip hop music, with our favorite comedy. You know, I’m not going to bring up Crocs again. Okay.
I don’t know. You could just fill in the blank, but the idea is that this is what we mean when we say a culturally responsive approach is that
regardless of who you are,
regardless of your race,
regardless of your gender,
your sexual identity,
regardless of your diagnosis,
your neurodivergence,
regardless of how you’re classified or how the world sees you, that is your superpower.
You can bring in what is important for your racial understanding, for your gender, you could bring in what’s important for your social identity, for how the world sees you, but more important, how you see yourself.
And that’s the beautiful thing. So what did we do? We were able to make it so we used the RAP technique to heal this event from the past.
When we use predictive processing and we have the proper disconfirmation, it leads to the reconsolidation of memories. So that problem will never bother the person again. We reconsolidate it so that the emotional intensity is gone.
The symptoms associated with it are gone. When they think about it, it doesn’t cause the same dysregulation. And the result is maintained without homework assignments.
Using the RAP Technique in Practice
Isn’t it a beautiful thing? This is what the therapy is all about. So the rhythm and processing technique can be used as a standalone, but it is also very powerful. If you use it as an adjunct to your favorite therapy, whether you’re using it with EMDR therapy, whether you’re using it with CBT, we want to find out ways of being able to bring up the problem.
And we got to find out a way to do something about it while helping a person maintain their dignity, while helping a person bring in things that they love about themselves or love about their hobbies, love about their leisure. And what a beautiful way to do it. And it’s also fun as a therapist.
I mean, I never thought that my job would be watching videos of beaches and waterfalls and also helping people to heal from experiences that have bothered them for decades. So it’s just for you to know in the description, you’ll see the link to my website. If you want an outline of what it is that the RAP technique is, if you want to join the group, find out how you can do this, how you can practice this, come join the community.
Let’s make an international anti-racist community of practitioners and also, you know, laugh. Let’s also just make it that we could feel good about our jobs, that we can keep vicarious trauma at bay and that we can help people to recognize their awesomeness. All right.
So many blessings. Have a nice rest of your week and stay tuned. There will be more videos.
All right. Peace. Take care.