Eye Movement
Desensitization
Reprocessing
Therapy (EMDR)

EMDR therapy can be a very intense emotional experience, temporarily. lt is not appropriate for those who are unwilling or unable to tolerate highly disturbing emotions. An EMDR therapist must take a thorough history to determine if and how EMDR can be used as part of an overall treatment plan. EMDR has been successfully used to treat many problems and issues (click here for references). Some of them include:

• PTSD
• Anxiety
• Compulsions
• Sexual Abuse
• Depression
• Panic Attacks
• Phantom Limb Pain
• Peak Performance
• Addictions
• Reactive Attachment Disorder
• Disordered Eating
• Dissociative Disorders
• Complicated Grief
• Performance Anxiety
• Phobias
• OCD
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Medical Procedures
• Migraines
• Chronic Pain
• Chronic Eczema
• Gastrointestinal Problems
• Negative Body Image

There are specific procedures to be followed depending on your presenting problem, emotional stability, medical condition, and other factors. lt is very important that the therapist be formally trained in EMDR. Otherwise, there is a risk that EMDR would be incomplete, ineffective, or even harmful.

• This depends on several factors including the nature of the problem being treated, the client’s history, and the client’s ability to tolerate high levels of disturbance. ln some cases, one EMDR treatment session is enough. Usually it takes weeks to months, but sometimes years of treatment are required. When EMDR therapy is used appropriately, it can significantly shorten the overall length of time in therapy.

EMDR is appropriate for people ages 1 to 101+.

When a client and a therapist do EMDR, the therapist asks the client to bring to mind the experience the client wants to work on, the negative thinking caused by the experience, and the new thoughts the client wants to have. Then the therapist moves her or his fingers rapidly back and forth in front of the client. The client follows the fingers with his or her eyes. After a number of sets of movements, clients generally think and feel quite differently about the experience, similar experiences, and themselves. Healing has started.

You don’t need eye movements for EMDR to work. Taps to hands, right and left, sounds alternating ear-to-ear, and even alternating movements by the client can work instead. Electronic tappers (aka buzzies) can also facilitate the bilateral stimulation needed. The key seems to be the alternating stimulation of the two sides of the brain.

Based on brain imaging technology, it is believed that EMDR works much like the Rapid Eye Movements experienced during sleep. According to Edward S. Hume, M.D., J.D., it looks like we need to dream to go over the events of our lives, extract guidance for the future, and throw away mere detail. Normal memory is literally re-membered: it is re-assembled from stored clues or instructions, which rely on contextual cues to fill in details.

EMDR may come close enough to imitating those eye movements we experience during sleep. Since the client is already awake in EMDR, the dream does not have to end. lt can continue while the client holds onto the here-and-now, and the work of the dream may be finished. At least, this is Dr. Hume’s theory of how EMDR works.