Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy
EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is an evidence-based therapy developed in the late 1980s by psychologist Francine Shapiro.
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What is EMDR?
How does it work?
What is EMDR helpful for?
EMDR is an evidence-based, somatic therapy which uses bilateral stimulation in the form of eye movements, tapping, or audio tones to help your system process memories so they feel less overwhelming or emotionally charged.
EMDR is recognized as an effective treatment for PTSD by leading organizations including the American Psychological Association, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Decades of research support its effectiveness for trauma/PTSD.
EMDR works by connecting what we know to what we feel, so that memories feel less activating to our system. You don’t need to talk in detail about what happened in order for EMDR to be helpful.
Brain imaging has shown that after EMDR treatment, there is a decrease in the activation of the amygdala (area responsible for fight/flight, assessing threat, attaching emotion to memory), and an increase in pre-frontal cortex activity (area responsible for logical thought, reasoning). [citation]
EMDR is well researched as a treatment for trauma. Trauma is less about what happened to you, and more about how it affected you. You don’t need to be able to pinpoint an exact memory to work on. It’s enough to start with targeting a feeling e.g., persistent anxiety, shame, hypervigilance, recurring nightmares, and we’ll work from there.
The research base for EMDR beyond PTSD is promising but still developing. EMDR is generally found to be comparable to, but not superior to, other evidence-based treatments for conditions such as depression, anxiety, grief, phobias, etc.
Do I need to focus on the past?
Not necessarily! We can utilize EMDR to focus on a recent event, or future scenarios that are creating distress. I’ve also used EMDR to target recurring, distressing dreams. Past, present, and future are all fair game.
What is the Flash technique?
Flash is similar to EMDR, also using bilateral stimulation and some visualization. With Flash, we only briefly activate the upsetting memory before shifting focus to something positive and really engaging. Flash is something that I typically use for single incident trauma, or as a way to lower the emotional intensity of a target in preparation for EMDR reprocessing work.