What is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a form of therapy created by Francine Shapiro to help clients who are impacted by trauma. There are substantial studies showing it’s efficacy in dealing with those types of trauma that an individual has not been able to move through with traditional therapy alone. The therapy involves bilateral stimulation of the brain through either eye movement, auditory stimuli, or sensory stimuli. EMDR often begins with helping the client to hold in their mind a positive safe place that they can go back to if the therapy becomes overwhelming.
From the EMDR institute:
“More than 30 positive controlled outcome studies have been done on EMDR therapy. Some of the studies show that 84%-90% of single-trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress disorder after only three 90-minute sessions. Another study, funded by the HMO Kaiser Permanente, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer were diagnosed with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. In another study, 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. There has been so much research on EMDR therapy that it is now recognized as an effective form of treatment for trauma and other disturbing experiences by organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization and the Department of Defense. Given the worldwide recognition as an effective treatment of trauma, you can easily see how EMDR therapy would be effective in treating the “everyday” memories that are the reason people have low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, and all the myriad problems that bring them in for therapy. Over 100,000 clinicians throughout the world use the therapy. Millions of people have been treated successfully over the past 25 years.”
For more information on EMDR, check out the resources below.