What is EMDR ?

The following is a brief non-technical explanation of what EMDR is and how it works.

In essence it is a trauma therapy and helps file away distressing memories of past events that may be encroaching in some way on every day life.

Under normal circumstances when we encounter events that upset or debilitate us they typically get better over time and become more manageable. What usually happens is that as time passes they gradually become a bit more resolved in our minds until they ultimately become what we call a narrative memory. In other words we remember all the events and exactly how we may have felt at the time, maybe hurt, angry, disappointed, hopeless, humiliated or whatever but we are no longer emotionally disabled by it any more. Sometimes for any number of reasons these painful events get stuck in our minds and are at risk of being triggered off by things we see or experience. Occasionally the trigger is so subtle that we don’t even consciously connect the trigger to the original event but end up feeling bad or emotionally disabled for a time anyway.

EMDR works on the principal of REM sleep (when we are dreaming at night our eyes move rapidly from side to side). During this period of time it was discovered that those movements connect to both sides of our brain (the intellectual and the emotional side) and stimulate our memories of events and gradually resolve them to a manageable level and metaphorically file them away safely. We are then able to access those memories for the purpose of learning from them but are no longer negatively affected by them. So by using these principals we can use EMDR to fast forward any past memories that may be stuck for any reason.

This is achieved by alternative tapping on the backs of the hands whilst simultaneously getting the client to focus on selected images of the past event and also the thoughts and beliefs surrounding that event. The purpose of the tapping is to integrate both sides of the brain because frequently some memories of the events get locked up in the intellectual side and others in the emotional side.

The reason that EMDR is so successful is due to the fact that it uses the person’s own brain and subconscious mind to resolve the issue. Given a chance the brain will set about healing itself psychologically in the same way as it aids physical recovery from the moment there is a problem.