EMDR – Part I: What is EMDR?
So perhaps we should not be asking “Why do you do the things you do?” but instead “What happened to you?”
— Pam Wilson, LCPC
According to SAMHSA’s National Registry of Evidence Based Programs & Practices, “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a one-on-one form of psychotherapy …designed to reduce trauma-related stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [And other traumas] and to improve overall mental health functioning.” EMDR has become the most researched and validated treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (www.emdria.org).
In addition to treating trauma, EMDR has been successfully used to treat a variety of complex mental illnesses such as:
Dr. Francine Shapiro
Prolonged grief
Eating disorders
Phobias
Substance abuse
Performance Anxiety, etc.
Origins of EMDR
In the late 1970’s, Dr. Francine Shapiro was struggling with a recent episode of cancer. Shapiro was concerned about the consequences that stress would have on her recovery. This began her personal journey to investigate the “mind-body effects of stress”. She attended seminars, workshops and studied papers on the topic. “I [used] myself as a laboratory for mind-body investigation for 8 years.” (EMDR, Shapiro, pg. 9)
As she tells it, one day in 1987, she was taking a walk around a lake observing people and scenery. She stated, “As I walked along, an odd thing happened. I had been thinking about something disturbing… The odd thing was that my nagging thought had disappeared…When I brought it back to mind, I found that its negative emotional charge was gone”. (EMDR, Shapiro, pg. 9)
As a doctoral student in clinical psychology, she began to experiment by asking colleagues, and later Vietnam War Veterans, to follow her finger with their eyes while thinking about a mildly disturbing event. She found that “unexpected memories frequently came up as the procedure quickly got people to look at the root of the problem, not just its leaves and branches.” (EMDR, Shapiro, pg. 11) During the sessions, she noted that painful images would soften and sensory details of the trauma would diminish (EMDR, Shapiro, pg. 16). In fact, it is common after EMDR processing, to ask the client to bring up the distressing image in their mind, and discover that they find it difficult to get a visual.
What is Trauma?
According to Shapiro, “Trauma is any event that has a lasting negative effect and would be upsetting to nearly everyone” (EMDR, Shapiro, xiii). Traumatic memories can be triggered by simple objects or events in daily life. By the same token, simple objects can become contaminated by traumatic memories.
Trauma can be divided into two major types according to severity.
Trauma with a “BIG T” – This type of trauma can cause Posttraumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. It includes events that the person perceives as life-threatening such as combat, crimes, rape, kidnapping, assault, and natural-disasters. These events transcend our ability to cope. (EMDR, Shapiro, xiii)
Trauma with a “small t” – These upsetting incidences of daily life can result in some of the same emotions as “Trauma BIG T” and have far-reaching impact. Bullying is one example of such a trauma.