"EMDR is the most widely researched form of trauma treatment...more than one million individuals worldwide have been successfully treated with EMDR."
EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing
Selection of books on EMDR
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. EMDR is a powerful psychological treatment that was developed by Dr Francine Shapiro, an American clinical psychologist in the 1980s.
Since then a great deal of research has been conducted and EMDR is now the most widely researched form of trauma treatment. In 2005 the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines in the UK recommended EMDR as one of two forms of trauma treatment.
EMDR is an evidence-based psychological treatment and by now more than one million individuals worldwide have been successfully treated with EMDR. The traumatic events they experienced may have been any of the following:-
- war-related experiences
- natural disaster
- road traffic accidents
- workplace accidents
- childhood sexual and / or physical abuse or neglect
- surgical trauma
- assault.
Since its original development, EMDR is now also used to help people with other issues and performance anxiety. EMDR can bring rapid relief to individuals who report:-
- bereavement and loss
- phobias
- pain
- panic attacks and anxiety
- depression
- addictions.
When a person has experienced a traumatic event, this event is, as it where, ‘frozen’ in their mind – they may re-experience the event and all the feelings associated with it. Francine Shapiro did her initial research with Vietnam veterans who 20 years after returning from the war still had nightmares, depression and ‘flashbacks’. Sometimes the memories can be so intense and distressing that the person will try to avoid thinking about it. Other things may remind them, or the memories just pop into their mind.
In EMDR the two sides of the brain are stimulated alternately, through the eye movement or other method, and this seems to ‘unfreeze’ the memories. The memories and associated images, sounds, smells, and emotions become less intense and more like ‘ordinary’ memories. This healing process can be quite rapid and works, even if the traumatic events have happened years earlier.
EMDR is a comprehensive therapeutic approach or process with specific procedures and protocols, rather than simply the use of eye movement. The therapist will take a detailed history of the distressing event and difficult experiences and fully explain the process, so that the client can give their informed consent to treatment. The initial sessions will focus on getting the client prepared, through breathing or relaxation exercises, or guided visualisation.
For further information, go to www.emdrassociation.org.uk - the website of the EMDR Association UK and Ireland, or to the Resources page for an article which Fokkina wrote in 2006 for a complementary health magazine.
