EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
I have found EMDR to be an indispensable part of my practice. We do a lot of talking, and talking is important to building relationship. Yet sometimes even years of talking using traditional therapies only leads a client to become better adapted to their symptoms...but EMDR has the potential to clear them. The goal for many clients is to become more self aware, more responsible and loving despite the symptoms occurring when "triggered" or "in projection". But how about this for a goal: not becoming triggered in the first place! In my experience, EMDR can help people achieve that. Of course there is no magic bullet for all people, but EMDR is by far the most effective treatment I have seen for many different kinds of problems.
The following is excerpted from the EMDR Institute website, www.emdr.com:
"EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences... EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma...the brain's information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using detailed protocols and procedures...clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.
EMDR therapy is an eight-phase treatment. Eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) are used during one part of the session. After the clinician has determined which memory to target first, he asks the client to hold different aspects of that event or thought in mind and to use his eyes to track the therapist's hand as it moves back and forth across the client's field of vision. As this happens, for reasons believed by a Harvard researcher to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, internal associations arise and the clients begin to process the memory and disturbing feelings. In successful EMDR therapy, the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level. For instance, a rape victim shifts from feeling horror and self-disgust to holding the firm belief that, "I survived it and I am strong." Unlike talk therapy, the insights clients gain in EMDR result not so much from clinician interpretation, but from the client’s own accelerated intellectual and emotional processes. The net effect is that clients conclude EMDR therapy feeling empowered by the very experiences that once debased them. Their wounds have not just closed, they have transformed."
