I'll explain later why this is so mangled; for now just remember that it stands for d4m0's Shift Hemispheres For Mental Health
WARNING: Use this software only after fully reading the DISCLAIMERS.txt and LIMITATIONS.txt files, taking any concerns that you may have from that information into account, as well as any other health issues into account-- actually, just have a physician look over this software with you, and judge whether or not it is safe to use for hemisphere switching therapy purposes. When you use this software you are using it at your own risk, I will not be held liable for any issues that may arise from your decision to use this software. Nor am I claiming that it has been investigated or otherwise approved by any organization to verify or certify its usage in any sort of medical treatment, psychiatric or otherwise. This is purely experimental, and my own personal success from it may be purely psychosomatic, and have nothing to do with any sort of actual benefits caused by this software.
In order to understand this project, it will help to be familiar with EMDR therapy, which is used with remarkable effectiveness in treating PTSD. The acronym stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
- What is EMDR?; from www.EMDR.com
- What is the EMDR session actually like?; via EMDRia.site-ym.com
- NOTE: since the repository location change the wiki database is offline (hopefully temporarily)
NOTE: This subsection is not yet included in the wiki.
It should be noted that this reconsideration is subsequent to the below decision to halt development.
I have had issues in the employment sector of my life for quite awhile now. Recently I obtained a new job, after quite a stretch of unemployment. Unfortunately, after being on the job for less than 10 days, the combination of three separate, highly stressful, incidents ended up finally triggering a PTSD fight/flight response association with my place of work.
I ended up having to leave work after the 3rd of the events, but this was easily justifiable due to the fact that the incident involved physical injury, and thus potential liability for the company if they didn't make some concessions.
It didn't even take until work rolled around the next day to realize that there was an association happening that would make it impossible for me to function in my place of work. I began calling to see if I could get in early with my therapist, but being put on the 'call if cancellations occur' list was the best that they could do.
Out of necessity, I decided to break out this app. I'd since learned that you don't need all of the sensory stims at play, and if that was the case, then using the functional visual display (conveniently set to stop the session after 5 minutes, by default) should provide some measure of being able to defuse that reaction.
It helped for me. I'm still using it.
It occurred to me that, due to the state of mental health care in this country, if not others, it might be the humanitarian thing to do to make a usable version of this program available as an open alpha to those who really need a session, especially if it's a situation like mine, where the trigger had to be defused at risk of homelessness, inability to pay for necessities, going hungry, etc. I've been in those situations so many times from things like this, and I feel that there is probably a large, and usually disregarded, subset of people with financial and stability issues that could benefit from such 'self-therapy' being available. If you're in this category, I wish you the best of luck, and please let me know if there's anything that I can do to help.
So that brings us to this point (21oct18). I'm going to disclaim the hell out of this in documentation, put it under a development license, and throw that into a release. Apropos of it all: use at your own risk, and hopefully your own benefit, as well.
After restarting EMDR under licensed oversight, again, I've become aware of a point in the official training that I was not previously aware of. It seems that during the classes for certification, those training are advised to never try any sort of therapy on themselves with this technique due to a potential for getting stuck. As this application works on an extremely similar method of action, I took note, though.
This seemed pretty unlikely to me, and I dismissed it as probably being a gimmick, ensuring that the copyrighted/trademarked therapy process keeps sending money back home, or at least copyright/trademark holders. However, I was researching hypnotic & hypnogogic states a bit the other night, and have decided to shelve this project, until I've been able to do the research on what kinds of brainwave changes it may induce while undergoing therapy.
If, for instance, it does induce some sort of hypnotic state, or anything based on REM/hypnogogia, this could actually be a legitimate concern. I certainly don't want my project here doing any harm. If anybody would care to help out with this research a bit, please let me know; I've not got enough time to go around right now, and it'd be greatly appreciated.
I had originally started on a Java project to experiment with concepts that I stumbled across after first having EMDR technology demonstrated not long ago. I'd attempted to use a Slider object, however, and I guess that widget is too complex to, or just decides not to, update on the display if the value is changed more than every ~20-25ms or so. Unfortunately, this makes it unviable for the variable rate 'Knight Rider/Kitt' display that we need for this therapy to work.
This project is implemented using javafx's Canvas objects, and seems to be much more responsive, as well as allowing much more flexibility in display options. I don't think it's going to take much to get this project somewhat useful, though adding features such as the tactile stim devices (especially if utilizing bluetooth connections) will provide added challenge, at some point.