What is EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Restructuring

EMDR is a protocol developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980's and early 1990's to address trauma. It is one of the most studied therapy protocols and been found to be highly effective in treating post traumatic stress disorder and elevating emotional pain attached to past life events. The protocol consists of identification of a target incident, defining the target incidents thoughts, emotions and body sensations, and processing the incident with bilateral stimulation. The therapist leads the session by guiding a client through processing with either eye movements, alternating sound that moves from one ear to another, or hand held buzzers that alternate vibrations form one hand to the other. This provides the bilateral stimulation which is thought to engage more of the nervous system, body and brain in the processing of the target incident. A successful EMDR sessions eliminates the current emotional pain or distress associated with the target. This can have profound effects in the everyday life of trauma survivors. To learn more about EMDR please visit www.emdr.com (see links in the left column).

In my experience, Mindfulness and EMDR compliment one another. Mindfulness appears to be very helpful for preparing and understanding the EMDR process. In some sense, EMDR is similar to a guided and directed meditation, as the allowing and observation of the thought, memories, feelings and sensations that arise during the session are part of the processing in EMDR.

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