EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.
More than 30 positive controlled outcome studies have been done on EMDR therapy. Some of the studies show that 84%-90% of single-trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress disorder after only three 90-minute sessions. Another study, funded by the HMO Kaiser Permanente, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer were diagnosed with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. In another study, 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. There has been so much research on EMDR therapy that it is now recognized as an effective form of treatment for trauma and other disturbing experiences by organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organisation, and the Department of Defence. Given the worldwide recognition as an effective treatment of trauma, you can easily see how EMDR therapy would be effective in treating the “everyday” memories that are the reason people have low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, and all the myriad problems that bring them in for therapy. Over 100,000 clinicians throughout the world use the therapy. Millions of people have been treated successfully over the past 25 years.
EMDR therapy is an eight-phase treatment. Eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) are used during one part of the session. After the client has determined which memory to target first, the client is asked to hold different aspects of that event or thought in mind and to use his eyes to track the therapist’s hand as it moves back and forth across the client’s field of vision. As this happens, for reasons believed by a Harvard researcher to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, internal associations arise, and the clients begin to process the memory and disturbing feelings. In successful EMDR therapy, the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level. For instance, a rape victim shifts from feeling horror and self-disgust to holding the firm belief that, “I survived it and I am strong.” Unlike talk therapy, the insights clients gain in EMDR therapy result not so much from clinician interpretation, but from the client’s own accelerated intellectual and emotional processes. The net effect is that clients conclude EMDR therapy feeling empowered by the very experiences that once debased them. Their wounds have not just closed, they have transformed. As a natural outcome of the EMDR therapeutic process, the clients’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviour are all robust indicators of emotional health and resolution—all without speaking in detail or doing homework used in other therapies (emdr.com).
Diagnoses successfully treated with EMDR Therapy:
· Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder (Bae & Kim, 2012).
· Self-esteem (Griffone et al., 2017).
· Depression (Hofmann, 2015, Ostacoli et al., 2018).
· Generalised Anxiety Disorder (Gauvreau & Bouchard, 2008).
· Grief and mourning (Sprang, 2001; Solomon & Rando, 2007).
· Juvenile offenders (Rhoden et al., 2019).
· Migraine headaches (Marcus, 2008).
· Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Bӧhm, et al., 2019).
· Phobias (de Jongh, et al., 2002, 2007).
· Attachment Disorder (Zaccagnino & Cussino, 2013).
· PTSD in children and adolescents (Diehle et al., 2015; de Roos et al., 2017).
· Body Dysmorphic Disorder (Brown et al., 1997).
· Chronic pain (Arias-Suarez et al., 2020).
· Combat-related PTSD (Ahmadi et al., 2015.
· Community disaster (Jarero et al., 2011, Shapiro & Laub, 2015).
· Conduct problems and self-esteem (Soberman et al., 2002).
· Eating disorders (Balbo et al., 2017).
· Immigrants / Refugees PTSD (Acarturk et al., 2016; Yurtserver et al., 2018).
· Medically unexplained physical symptoms (van Rood & de Roos, 2009).
· Panic Disorder (Faretta, 2013; Faretta & Leeds, 2017; Fernandez & Faretta, 2007).
· Tinnitus (Phillips et al., 2019)
(Copyright 1990-2021 EMDR Institute & Francine Shapiro, PhD.)
Some proof:
Marcus, S., Marquis, P. & Sakai, C. (1997). Controlled study of treatment of PTSD using EMDR in an HMO setting. Psychotherapy, 34, 307-315. Funded by Kaiser Permanente. Results show that 100% of single-trauma and 80% of multiple-trauma survivors were no longer diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after six 50-minute sessions (emdr.com.au).
Kemp M., Drummond P., & McDermott B. (2010). A wait-list controlled pilot study of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) for children with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms from motor vehicle accidents. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 15, 5-25. All participants initially met two or more PTSD criteria. After EMDR treatment, this decreased to 25% in the EMDR group but remained at 100% in the wait-list group (emdr.com.au).