EMDR

EMDR (Eye Movement, Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a powerful psychological treatment method that was developed by an American clinical psychologist, Dr Francine Shapiro, in the 1980s. It is a hopeful approach to therapy that recognises the fact that we are all genetically encoded to recover from traumatic experiences.

Distressing past events can become locked in the nervous system as the brain may be unable to process the information like a normal memory. Unresolved trauma leads to the memory being neurologically frozen in time and continues to replay throughout everyday situations as if stuck on a loop. When a person recalls the distressing memory, the person can re-experience what they saw, heard, smelt, tasted, thought or felt, which can be quite intense and overwhelming. This reliving can feel so distressing that avoiding anything that may trigger the memory can feel like the only option to ease suffering.

The alternating left-right stimulation of the brain with eye movements, sounds or taps during EMDR, seem to stimulate the frozen or blocked information processing system. The effect is believed to be similar to that which occurs naturally during REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement) when your eyes rapidly move from side to side. Throughout processing, the memories seem to lose their intensity, and allow the brain to file away events like ordinary memories meaning that they are no longer triggered.