“Their wounds have not just closed, they have transformed. “
This is false. The wound has not changed. Only the perception of the wound has changed.
I have worked with soldiers who have used EMDR to decrease PTSD symptoms. In testing, the emotional subconscious wound still existed. However, the perception had changed in that the memory retrieval was processed logically rather than emotional.
There are variations of EMDR, the most popular is a process by a psychologist at the Chicago VA hospital, Dr. Allen Botkin.
Another technique that works in a similar fashion is EFT. Again, it does not heal the original wound in the person’s soul.
While it is the most time consuming and costly, nothing replaces psychotherapy in providing the best outcome.
Dr. Skip Rizzo at USC integrated virtual reality with imagination reprogramming psychotherapy with very good results. It greatly accelerated the healing process.
At the same time, at Walter Reed they were experimenting with virtual reality for repeated exposure desensitization and it did not work.
EMDR has been around for many years and is only one of the eleven evidence based treatment modalities approved for PTSD.
You clearly have more and more recent experience in such treatments than I do.
I would suggest, however, that transferring a memory/response dynamic from emotional to logical is one way to neuter, take the wind out of the sails of the pain from a historic event.
In terms of PERCEPTION—many experts would insist that PERCEPTION = REALITY in most practical terms.