EMDR

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a complex, highly specialized therapy used to overcome the effects of traumatic or upsetting experiences. EMDR combines several therapeutic methods — psychodynamic, cognitive, behavioral, etc. — with eye movements or other forms of rhythmical stimulation, such as hand taps or sounds. It involves recalling a stressful past event and "reprogramming" the memory in the light of a positive, self-chosen belief.

It has been most successful with single-incident trauma, but has expanded to effectively treat the emotional scars left by more common childhood events that keep people stuck in limiting behaviors.

At the time of a traumatic event, strong emotions interfere with our ability to completely process the experience. Impressions of the trauma get stored in our nervous system through the defense mechanisms we use to cope with the incident, such as dissociation, or "splitting off" from ourselves to handle the emotional pain. As a result, we are blocked from learning new ways of seeing the situation, and will re-experience the symptoms of the initial trauma when stressful events trigger us in the present. Thus, we can get trapped in recurring anxiety, depression, phobias, panic attacks, and the like.

EMDR links the memory of trauma with present-oriented, adaptive information. Though the exact mechanism is unknown, it appears that the eye movements relieve the anxiety associated with the trauma so that the original event can be examined from a more detached perspective, somewhat like watching a movie of what happened. In this way cognitive reorganizing takes place, leading to spontaneous emotional and behavioral life changes.

EMDR has been most powerful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major trauma such as that experienced by combat veterans, survivors of natural disasters, and victims of violent crime. However, its uses also include "small t" traumas, events that happen in everyone's lives, but which leave us with the inability to reprocess negative beliefs about ourselves. These include being teased in school, ridiculed by a parent, or getting lost as a child in a public place. EMDR is widely used to treat the following problems:

EMDR is also currently being explored for treating chronic pain, asthma, and learning disabilities.

• The main benefit of EMDR is the speed at which deep-seated problems can be resolved. Single sessions of EMDR have been shown to produce results, and an average treatment time of five sessions to comprehensively treat PTSD (Shapiro, 1989 199-223). According to Carol Boulware, Ph.D., a practicing EMDR therapist in Los Angeles, one study showed that "EMDR was twice as effective in half the amount of time of standard traditional psychotherapeutic care."
• Unlike many "talk" therapies, EMDR does not require the client to go into detail about the distressing events of the past. While communicating and establishing trust with the therapist is essential, what seems to be equally important to the process is the client registering the event and holding the recall within during the eye movement sessions and the reprocessing. There is no need to analyze the trauma for long periods of time.
• EMDR is a multi-faceted approach, not limited to cognitive, behavioral, or somatic methods, but a synthesis of all three and more. The fact that it simultaneously works on mind, body, and emotions may account for its success in taking mere intellectual understanding of the origins of a problem (e.g. "I know I have guilt over killing in the war") to a holistic resolution involving a bodily release, where post-traumatic symptoms such as intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and anger outbursts clear up.

Yes. The EMDR Institute's website provides a page of controlled research studies with brief synopses of the findings on their Research Overview and Efficacy pages. A site with even more results is Dr. David Baldwin's Trauma Information Pages, which contain literally hundreds of journal articles citing research studies (see references and resources). See also the Energy Healing Resource's Reference Page for more study citations.

The above excerpts from the web article on EMDR can be found in its entirety at:   http://www.helpguide.org/mental/emdr_therapy.htm