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EMDR

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy technique that has been used for about 20 years. Most insurance companies recognize EMDR as a valid therapy process. The mechanisms that make EMDR work are difficult to identify and therefore EMDR remains a bit of a mysterious process. However, EMDR has been very effective for many individuals and is deemed to be a successful treatment about 75 percent of the time.

EMDR was originally used in trauma work, however has become a very effective tool working with a variety of mental health issues. EMDR seems to engage the client at a deeper level of the memory system or information processing system. It is as if we are working directly with the gut level where we hold onto the raw physical/emotional memory of an experience.

I experienced EMDR first as a client and then as a therapist working with my own clients. EMDR seems to offer a dual experience for the client. The client seems to be able to both witness and experience a past event concurrently. The witnessing of the event, perhaps as if watching a movie of the event, seems to allow the client to detach from the event. The experiencing of the feelings associated with the event allows for the desensitization process to occur. These two concurrent experiences seem to provide a powerful, and immediate relief. The client, no longer feeling attached to the experience or emotionally charged by the memory of it, is then freed up to take the necessary steps to make changes in her life. This is why I recommend EMDR whenever a client is feeling stuck in spite of having gained significant insight into a problem.

EMDR can offer quick relief for individuals. In traditional insight oriented talk therapy we often are looking at a disturbing event or events as the possible source of a current struggle. By talking about the events and expressing the feelings related to those events we attempt to reduce the emotional intensity brought on by the memory of the event. We try to understand how the past experience impacts our life today, and then we attempt to alter faulty beliefs about ourselves or the world that may have arisen from the events. This process traditionally can take months to years depending on the nature of the events and a variety of other factors. With EMDR, we can typically make substantial gains in 1 to 3 sessions.

The process involves a visual cue from the therapist that the client follows to induce rapid eye movement (a back and forth movement from eye to eye) and I also use auditory cues to create alternating bilateral stimulus from ear to ear. While engaged in the eye movement the client focuses on the feelings and thoughts associated with a past event or situation and then reports on the experience to the therapist.

The client is completely conscious and in control during EMDR, however seems more willing and less restricted in the process. The process seems far less of a struggle than traditional therapy sessions, with far less resistance to the work. It may be because the therapist seems to almost fade into the background of the experience and the client may feel less vulnerable and therefore freer to express feelings and thoughts associated with the event.

EMDR is not a panacea. I prefer to view EMDR as one part of a process of recovery, however it may be the essential piece in freeing up an individual to make change. So, in my way of thinking, EMDR can create a gateway to changing behavior by relieving the pain associated with one's past and altering faulty beliefs that came out of past experiences.

Ed

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