What is EMDR?
The mind can often heal itself naturally, in the same way as the body does. Much of this natural coping mechanism occurs during sleep, particularly during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep. Francine Shapiro developed Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) in 1987, utilising this natural process to successfully treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Since then, EMDR has been used to effectively treat a wide range of mental health problems including things like birth trauma, anxiety, depression, and panic attacks.
What happens when you are traumatised?
Most of the time your body routinely manages new information and experiences without you being aware of it. However, when you become traumatised by an overwhelming event (e.g. a car accident or baby loss) or by being repeatedly subjected to distress (e.g. bullying or abuse during childhood), your natural coping mechanism can become overloaded. This overloading can result in disturbing experiences remaining frozen in your brain or being “unprocessed”. These unprocessed memories are stored in the limbic system of your brain in a “raw”, emotional, and sensory form, rather than in a verbal “story” mode. This limbic system keeps traumatic memories in an isolated memory network that is associated with emotions and physical sensations that are disconnected from the brain’s cortex. This is where we use language to store memories. The limbic system’s traumatic memories can be continually triggered by events similar to the difficult experiences you have been through. The memory itself may be long forgotten, but the painful feelings such as anxiety, panic, anger, or despair are continually triggered in the present. This can inhibit your ability to live in the present and learn from new experiences. EMDR helps to create the connections between your brain’s memory networks, enabling your brain to process the traumatic memory in a very natural way.
What is an EMDR session like?
EMDR utilises the natural healing ability of your body. After an in-depth psychological assessment, you will be asked specific questions about a particular disturbing memory. Eye movements, similar to those during REM sleep, will be recreated simply by asking you to watch the therapist’s finger moving backwards and forwards across your visual field or alternatively, by using your hands to bi-laterally tap your arms or legs. The eye movements /body tapping will last for a short while and then stop. You will then be asked about the thoughts, feelings, and physical experiences you have had during each of these tapping /eye movement activities. Experiences during a session may include changes in thoughts, images, and feelings.
With repeated sets of eye movements or body tapping, the memory tends to change in such a way that it loses its painful intensity and simply becomes a neutral memory of an event in the past. Other associated memories may also heal at the same time. This linking of related memories can result in a dramatic and rapid improvement in many aspects of your life.
EMDR can be a brief focused treatment or part of a longer psychotherapy programme. EMDR sessions can last for 50 to 90 minutes.
In what areas can EMDR be affective?
In addition to its use in the treatment of PTS(D), EMDR has been successfully used to treat stress, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, phobias, sleep problems, complicated grief, addictions, pain relief, self-esteem. This list is by no means exhaustive.
Can anyone benefit from EMDR?
EMDR can accelerate therapy by resolving the impact of your past traumas and allowing you to live more fully in the present. It is not, however, appropriate for everyone. The process is rapid, and any disturbing experiences, if they occur at all, last for a comparatively short period of time. Nevertheless, you need to be aware of, and willing to experience, the strong feelings and disturbing thoughts, which sometimes occur during sessions.
Will I remain in control and empowered?
During EMDR treatment, you will remain in control, fully alert and wide-awake. This is not a form of hypnosis, and you can stop the process at any time. Throughout the session, the therapist will support and facilitate your own self-healing and intervene as little as possible. Reprocessing is usually experienced as something that happens spontaneously, and new connections and insights are felt to arise quite naturally from within. As a result, most people experience EMDR as being a natural and very empowering therapy.
What evidence is there that EMDR is a successful treatment?
EMDR is an innovative clinical treatment which has successfully helped millions of individuals. The validity and reliability of EMDR has been established by rigorous research. There are now nineteen controlled studies into EMDR making it the most thoroughly researched method used in the treatment of trauma (details on www.emdr-europe.org and www.emdr.org) and is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as an effective treatment for PTSD.
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