What is EMDR? Hailed as the most important method to emerge in psychotherapy in decades, EMDR has successfully treated psychological problems and illnesses in more than one million sufferers worldwide, with a rapidity that defies belief. EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, is a new, nontraditional, very short-term therapy for treating trauma victims that utilizes rhythmical stimulation such as eye movements or hand taps. EMDR is a three-pronged approach involving processing of:
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EMDR is a complex method of psychotherapy which integrates many of the successful elements of a range of therapeutic approaches in combination with eye movements or other forms of alternative dual attention stimulation, such as alternative hand-tapping or alternative audio tones, which appear to stimulate the brain's information processing system. EMDR is an innovative clinical treatment originated and developed by Dr Francine Shapiro in 1987. EMDR is effective in treating individuals who have experienced psychological difficulties arising from traumatic experiences, such as assault, road traffic accidents, war trauma, torture, natural or man-made disasters, sexual abuse and childhood neglect.
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During EMDR treatment the client attends to emotionally disturbing material in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. EMDR appears to facilitate the accessing of the traumatic memory network and the information is adaptively processed with new associations being made between the disturbing memory and more adaptive memories or information, leading to more complete information processing, alleviation of emotional and physiological distress and development of cognitive insights. |
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The client is instructed to focus on the image, negative thought, and body sensations of the chosen traumatic experience,while simultaneously moving his/her eyes back and forth following the therapist's fingers as they move across his/her field of vision for 20-30 seconds or more, depending upon the need of the client. Athough eye movements are the most commonly used external stimulus, therapists often use auditory tones, tapping, or other types of tactile stimulation. The client is instructed to just notice whatever happens. After this, the clinician instructs the client to let his/her mind go blank and to notice whatever thought, feeling, image, memory, or sensation comes to mind. Depending upon the client's report the clinician will facilitate the next focus of attention. In most cases a client-directed association process is encouraged. This is repeated numerous times throughout the session. If the client becomes distressed or has difficulty with the process, the therapist follows established procedures to help the client resume processing. When the client reports no distress related to the targeted memory, the clinician asks him/her to think of the preferred positive belief that was identified at the beginning of the session, or a better one if it has emerged, and to focus on the incident, while simultaneously engaging in the eye movements. After several sets, clients generally report increased confidence in this positive belief. The therapist checks with the client regarding body sensations. If there are negative sensations, these are processed as above. If there are positive sensations, they are further enhanced. EMDR is also increasingly used to treat complaints which are not necessarily trauma-related, such as panic disorder, phobias, performance anxiety, self-esteem issues and other anxiety-related disorders. After EMDR processing, clients generally report that the emotional distress related to the memory has been eliminated, or greatly decreased, and that they have gained important cognitive insights. Importantly, these emotional and cognitive changes usually result in spontaneous behavioral and personal change.
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