Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was developed by Francine Shapiro. EMDR is a non-invasive “Bilateral” treatment intervention, meaning that various senses (e.g. sight, hearing or tactile/feeling) get engaged to treat traumatic or stressful/bothersome reoccurring memories. It is very effective in treating Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as other types of mental health issues, including physical pain. The premise of this treatment intervention is that it mimics the dynamics of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is when our learning and adaptive responses get filed in our brains for integration.

When we are traumatically or stressfully affected, the issue or memory has a tendency to get stuck or frozen in certain parts of our brain. The bilateral stimulation, along with an eight-phase protocol guided by a trained EMDR therapist (like myself), can get the memory unstuck and filed into the proper area of our brain where the memory is no longer plaguing us, thus taking the “sting” or pain out. We do not forget the memory; it just no longer has the control over us that it did before the EMDR treatment.

EMDR is effective in treating adults as well as children. This approach has beneficial effects for those with attachment issues as well.