-Supports any CBT, DBT, ACT and ERP therapy practices.
-Teaches Cognitive Defusion and other therapy techniques in a fun format to provide relief from Obsessive Thoughts, Phobias, Addictions, OCD and Anxiety.
-Shown to be helpful for people with Neurodiversities, including Autism, ADHD, DD/ID and the Twice Exceptional (2E)
-Defuser© is a self-empowerment tool that helps teach people how to manage their thoughts.
-Includes Video Tutorial and Inspirational Video links
 
Defuser© A Visual and Tactile Thought Management Technique for Managing Intrusive and Perseverative Thoughts
 
A helpful thought can make us feel confident, happy, even brave. An unhelpful thought can make us feel worried, anxious or sad.  Each of us has to navigate the thoughts that our individual brain signals to us. Without conscious effort and skills to manage intrusive or negative thoughts, we can become stuck feeling anxious, sad or overwhelmed.
 
Do you believe you have control over how you
respond or react to events? 
If you do feel in control, how do you maintain confidence and face challenges?
If you don’t feel in control and would like to learn more about how to gain control and/or recover more quickly from negative thoughts, Defuser can help you learn to get some distance from your thoughts and to see the bigger picture without feeling ruled by what the negative thoughts may be telling you. In this space, you will be able to decide what truly serves you and your attention, and your response to whatever shows up that minute, that day, that week, that month, that year. Changing your perspective on your thoughts can change almost anything. 
 
What is Defuser© ? 
 
Defuser© patent pending is a self-empowerment tool in the form of a card game that helps teach people to manage their thoughts, feelings and behaviors as opposed to letting their thoughts, feelings and behaviors control them. The technique was developed by Leon Monroe at Essential Counseling and Therapeutic Services, PLLC and has been used by his team since 2016 to help people in the Autism community and those who struggle with Anxiety, ADHD, OCD and the Twice Exceptional (2E). Leon is also completing development of an electronic app version of the game for practicing the skill on the go. Defuser© is inspired by the treatment modalities of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Temple Grandin’s Thinking in Pictures. 
 
How effective is it?
 
Defuser© has been shown to be highly effective in multiple trials with multiple clinicians at Essential. Those who learn it have reported they continue to use the skill in real life many years later allowing them to manage intrusive thoughts, reduce anxiety symptoms and increase focus. Defuser© is completely skills based and is not meant to be a substitute for therapy. However, it has been shown to increase the effectiveness of most therapies, especially if used with clinicians who are already using CBT, DBT and/or ACT. In collaboration with a local university, its effectiveness will soon be studied using brain imaging.
 
Mission:  
 
Defuser© was built to honor our need as humans to feel as if we have agency and are the masters of our own *inner world* to the extent that is possible. Our conscious inner world is composed of: thoughts, feelings, sensations, urges, and memories. However, many people spend much of their days inundated by images and sounds, mostly via information from the internet via social media, doom-scrolling, etc. and this can cause *big feels* (loneliness, hopelessness, low self-esteem, sadness, jealousy, etc.) Although we are grateful for many technological advances that have come to us in the past 20 years, we are also now tasked with finding a way to create a sense of control around our emotions, our experiences, and our actions that is not easily swayed or taken over by forces other than our own values and truths. Defuser© is a technique that creates a link between our body and our brain, literally allowing muscle memory and mental practice towards the goal of letting go of unwanted or intrusive thoughts and emotions that are not helpful. 
 
What is defusion? 
 
To understand defusion, it is important to understand our common, untrained mental state, which is to experience thoughts and emotions as part of us, and not an event that happens or passes through our awareness. Therefore, the training that Defuser provides gives us a new perspective about events and emotions that happen to us. 
 
Defusion is experienced as ‘having’ thoughts and feelings rather than ‘being’ thoughts and feelings (Atkins & Styles, 2016).

 
Research:
 
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl & Wilson, 1999) is a contextual behavioral therapy that has been widely adopted and the focus of an increasing number of clinical trials during recent years 
 
Clinical trials of the use of the Defuser© method conducted at Essential Counseling and in person and over video telehealth calls over the past six years have indicated significant increases in patients’ belief that they are able to manage intrusive thoughts using the method. Self-reporting pre and post scale questionnaires were used to measure patient benefit from using the Defuser© method.
 
What does Defuser© provide for clinicians and their clients?
 
Clients are able to practice cognitive defusion outside of sessions in order to strengthen that skill.
 
Clinicians are able to teach the skill in a visual, concrete way for clients who need the visual and tactile stimulation that the game provides.