The Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) method accelerates the treatment of a wide range of problems and self-esteem issues related to both upsetting past events and present life conditions. Controlled studies of victims of Vietnam combat, childhood abuse, accidents, catastrophic loss and natural disaster indicate that the method is capable of a rapid desensitization of traumatic memories, including a cognitive restructuring and a significant reduction of symptoms (e.g., emotional distress, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks and nightmares). There are more controlled studies to-date on EMDR than on any other method used in the treatment of trauma.
  

 
 

An Interview with Dr. Francine Shapiro,
the Orginator of EMDR

Q: Let's follow an example, such as a teacher picking on a second grade student. Even though the person is now an adult, they still feel as if they “fall into a pit” around these kinds of experiences.

A: In EMDR we would do the comprehensive history, then identify the childhood memory of being humiliated by the teacher in second grade. Then we would appropriately identify the negative feelings, such as “I'm not good enough,” “I'm really stupid,” “Something is wrong with me.” The clinician would encourage the client in reprocessing positive emotions, feelings, and thoughts, such as “I am good enough,” “I am worthy,” “I am fine as I am.” During this, the clinician would be working with the client's eye movements. In a short span of time, the client will process their normal feelings of grief, anger, pain, sadness, and finally, acceptance of the incident. Often, people will remember some good things from that period of time now that they have moved the negative memories along.

Q: Not to be too simplistic, but it sounds as if trauma keeps people in a “stuck” place.

A: It does. Trauma can keep information stuck in the nervous system. The emotions of the adult around the situation can be still as fresh and unprocessed as when they happened to them as a second grade child.... Unprocessed emotions create an imbalance in the system and the system is unable to process feelings naturally.... [Trauma] keeps new information from getting through. So even with high intelligence, years of talk therapy, lots of study and understanding, a person may be unable to change their low self-esteem. EMDR seems to allow a person to let go of the negative images around their traumatic events and take hold of the positive feelings about themselves and their world.... With EMDR, the system is reactivated and balanced. As trauma is reprocessed, a person's ability to learn new information is opened. There is an ability to take in positive, new information in ways that couldn't happen before.

Q: How did you discover rapid eye movements as a means of processing trauma?

A: I was walking one day and had some difficult, disturbing thoughts and feelings come up. At some point I realized that the disturbing thoughts had disappeared. I went back and looked at what had been happening, and I realized that as I had been moving my eyes back and forth rapidly, the thoughts had lost their emotional charge for me.

Q: And you trusted what was happening to you enough to believe you had come across a natural healing process?

A: Yes, I did. Actually, I saw myself as having stumbled across an activation of the body's natural healing process. I understand it as primarily a physiological phenomena. When the body gets caught in trauma, blocks occur which keep us from processing thought and feelings. Our system is disturbed so it cannot work the way it is intended to. When we remove the blocks, the system returns to a state of homeostatis again.

Q: What does the process of EMDR consist of?

A: There are eight phases to the process:
  1. The clinician takes a thorough history of the client.
  2. Target areas of trauma are identified.
  3. The components of the target areas are explored and a treatment plan is developed.
  4. Desensitization occurs around the target areas.
  5. The installation of new beliefs, feelings and thoughts [are linked to] the target areas.
  6. A body scan is done to release physical tension the body may be holding.
  7. The client is brought to a state of equilibrium before closing a session.
  8. At the next session, a re-evaluation is done on the previous work.


(1995). “EMDR: A physiological response to healing and trauma.” Journey, 7 (7), 1-2.

  

 
The Malfunctioning Mind

Dr. Francine Shapiro published her pilot study in 1989. Until 1994, there was a single published study. To date, EMDR has been studied more than any other method for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). EMDR is used in the context of a therapeutic framework. This is not a single-shot therapy, nor a single-session treatment. Therapists usually recommend a minimum of 3-4 sessions before treatment with EMDR. When we first take the client's history, we want to identify the earliest disturbing incident. In addition, we may target the worst incident, the most recent and a future template. If the earlier traumas are resolved, the client will be more resilient and able to process current problems. We try to tailor EMDR to the nervous system of each individual.

Dr. Janet Colli received EMDR Level I and Level II Trainings in Seattle, Washington in 1996. She has used EMDR in her psychotherapy practice ever since. EMDR can be used to treat a wide range of problems, including:

· Childhood sexual abuse
· Depression due to relationship problems
· Childhood abuse & neglect
· Adjustment difficulties or phase-of-life problems
· Grief & loss due to death of loved ones
· Phobias, e.g., flying on airplanes
· Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
· Negative self-image related to eating disorders (EDS)
· Chronic fatigue disorder (CFS) & Environmental sensitivities
· Earthquake victims' posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
· Airline industry employees' PTSD due to '9/11'


During REM sleep, our eyes move as if we were watching the images we see moving in our dreams

Physiological overview:
Ordinary experience is normally processed during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM likely aids the shift from short-term to long-term memory. When the degree of trauma prohibits normal processing, memory is locked into the nervous system in an unprocessed form. REM is inhibited in long-term survivors of trauma, who have decreased levels of REM, though these levels are increased immediately after the trauma. EMDR uses this natural healing mechanism during waking consciousness. It is a “self-healing” paradigm. Eye movements facilitate the healing process as the client maintains a dual attention of both past & present; hemispheric communication across the corpus collosum may also be facilitated. According to this empirically driven theory, it is the alternating stimulation that reprocesses information, not necessarily the eye movements associated with the stimulation. Alternating forms of stimulation such as touch (tapping) or sounds (finger-snapping) are thus possible.

The model of brain physiology for EMDR is currently unknown. However, EMDR does not produce the same brain waves as trance induction or hypnosis. When the adaptive information processing system has been thrown out of balance, memory is held in the right hemisphere of the brain where affect is primary, and language is secondary. The memory is stored in a fragmented way, in “somato-sensory” form (feelings, pictures, sounds, smells). EMDR helps link up these disparate neuro-networks. But even if the original trauma is nonverbal, thoughts and beliefs may later constellate around it. We target and process the known memory, which might be just a smell or a fragment. The information packet is thereby shifted, and memory is no longer held in sensory form. For example, the affect may not be as strong, or there won't be a vivid auditory impression. Sometimes more details may be remembered. However, memory retrieval is not the goal of treatment; becoming more functional is the goal.

“EMDR is a powerful new tool for relieving human suffering. Its study opens new doors to our understanding of the mind.”
—Steven Lazrove, M.D.,
Yale Psychiatric Institute

“EMDR is a new and exciting treatment method which is now assisting people with a wide range of psychological problems. It is also bound to be a breakthrough in our understanding of the neurological basis of mental processes.”
—Robyn Robinson, Ph.D.,
Director of Trauma Support Consultants,
Founding President, Australian Critical Incident Stress Association, Melbourne, Australia

  

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