What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful, comprehensive psychotherapy approach that is empirically supported. EMDR offers a reprocessing of disturbing life experiences, resulting in a significant reduction or elimination of symptoms such as emotional distress, intrusive and obsessive thoughts, and flashbacks and nightmares. It involves eye movements and other forms of bilateral stimulation that are used to access the brain’s system of information processing. EMDR was originally developed by Francine Shapiro, a Senior Research Fellow at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California in 1987.
What conditions does EMDR treat?
EMDR has proven to be effective in treating the following conditions:
- Trauma
- PTSD
- Phobias
- Panic Attacks
- Body Image Issues
- Stress Reduction/Insomnia
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Disturbing Memories
- Complicated Grief
- Addictions
- Pain Disorders
- Performance Anxiety
How Does the Treatment Work?
EMDR therapy is an eight-phase treatment. During the initial phase, your clinician will take a thorough background history and begin creating a target sequence plan—an overview of previous experiences and memories that negatively impact you today and contribute to any current symptoms. During the preparation phase, the therapist will assess a client’s readiness to move forward with treatment. The therapist will educate the client on how trauma impacts the brain and provide an overview of the EMDR process. The client will also learn mindfulness and grounding techniques to help reduce stress.
During the next phase, the client is asked to hold different aspects of the targeted memory in mind, then bilateral stimulation (through eye movements, buzzers, tapping, or sound) is used to stimulate reprocessing. This process is believed to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep when memories are processed in the brain. Some clients describe the process as feeling like a lucid dream or watching a movie of events from their life. In successful EMDR therapy, past memories become less disturbing and the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level. Unlike other forms of therapy, the insights that clients gain in EMDR therapy result less from clinician interpretation, and more from the client’s own accelerated mental and emotional processes. EMDR can be successfully used in conjunction with other forms of psychotherapy.
EMDR also is used to treat relationship problems and self-esteem issues, as well as anxiety and panic, depression, grief, and phobias. It also can improve professional, artistic, and creative performance by sharpening focus, gaining increased awareness of managerial style, and by alleviating performance anxiety in the areas of public speaking, sports, and in the creative arts.
What are the benefits?
EMDR remains one of the most researched psychotherapeutic treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. There have been numerous controlled studies demonstrating its effectiveness in helping people heal traumatic memories. Perhaps, one of the biggest benefits of EMDR is the ability of clients to heal in a much shorter time than with other forms of psychotherapy. Visit the links below for more information:
Certified Therapist
Jen Kaplan
Clinical Social Work / Therapist, MA, LCSW, EMDR, CCTP
I have over 25 years of experience working with a range of mental and emotional challenge...
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