EMDR Treatment

What is EMDR?

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an extremely effective treatment for people who have had traumatic experiences.

In the late 1980's, a psychologist, Francine Shapiro, found that disturbing thoughts, feelings, or flashbacks that often follow a traumatic event could be alleviated or eliminated by having clients move their eye rapidly while reflecting on the event. EMDR was soon formalized into a new treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and used to treat rape victims and war veterans.

EMDR is a non-drug, non-hypnotic psychotherapy procedure. It does not require the therapist to know details of the events that have led the client to therapy, only what happens during the process. The EMDR process is client led and always remains within the control of the client.

It is recommended by NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) as the treatment of choice for PTSD.

How does trauma affect us?

The impact of a traumatic event can be physical, psychological or a mixture of the two. Most people recover quickly, but sometimes specialist help may be needed.

Usually, when something happens, your eyes, ears and other senses are the first to respond. This body information is then stored as memories. These usually have a story-like quality and contain your impressions and interpretations as well as facts about what happened.

When something dangerous happens, your body and brain respond in a different way. Your body recognises the emergency and takes protective action. Its messages to the brain seem to be put into an emergency store often without going through the normal memory processing.

These experiences – with the original sound thoughts and feelings – are recorded in your brain in the raw unprocessed form.

Sometimes the brain does not then process these experiences in the normal way to form ordinary memories.

Traumatic memories seem to become locked into the brain in their “raw” form. When these memories are recalled they can be very upsetting. Sometimes they can be recalled out of the blue causing flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks and angry outbursts.

How can EMDR help?

EMDR is an approach that seems to help ‘unblock’ the brain’s processing so that traumatic memories can become “ordinary” memories. We do not know precisely how this treatment works, but it is likely to be the alternating left-right stimulation of the brain replicating REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep in which the eyes often move from side to side on their own. These eye movements may help to process the unconscious material.

What happens during a session?

First, the therapist will explore the nature of the problem to determine whether EMDR is a suitable treatment.

When upsetting experiences and feelings are being worked with, it is very important that you feel safe and in control at all times.

If it is considered to be an appropriate treatment, the therapist will set up a “safe place” before starting to use EMDR to work on upset feelings or memories. This procedure involves imagining a place where you feel safe and happy and using eye movements to “install” a strong image of this. This safe place is a relaxation technique. It can be a refuge during EMDR or between sessions at any time.

Following a thorough preparation, you will be asked to think about the distressing event whilst either looking at the therapist’s finger and following it back and forth for about 15 to 30 seconds, or focussing on alternating sounds, vibrations, or hand taps on the knees.

After the eye movements or other right-left stimulation, the therapist will stop and ask you what comes up in your mind. Typically something shifts and you will reports a new image, thought, feeling, or physical sensation. You are then asked to hold this in mind and follow another set of eye movements, hand taps or sounds. Sometimes upsetting thoughts and feelings come up and need to be dealt with. The procedure continues until the event no longer seems upsetting.

Why bring up a painful memory?

When painful memories are avoided, they keep their disturbing power. They can unexpectedly and sometimes frighteningly affect our behaviour in the present. With EMDR, you can face the memory in a safe setting so that you do not feel overwhelmed. You are then able to move on and allow the memory and emotions to fade into the past and lose their power.

Can EMDR help with other problems?

As well as helping trauma, EMDR can work well with:

Anxiety based disorders (including panic attacks)
Obsessive Compulsive Disorders
Phobias
Abuse (verbal, physical and sexual)
Rape and sexual assault
Self-esteem issues
Anger
Performance anxiety