Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing therapy (EMDR) is founded in the work of the late psychologist Francine Shapiro, and is an internationally renowned treatment for trauma-related PTSD. EMDR therapy enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing memories of life experiences. 

EMDR is a form of psychotherapy that uses rapid eye movement (REM) to reshape the way our brains process traumatic (emotional) memories. EMDR works from the perspective that psychological healing is much like physical healing. If a foreign object remains embedded in a wound, healing stops, and the wound festers. When the object is removed, healing resumes. 

EMDR is not limited to PTSD survivors and is a technique of bilateral eye movements that engage your brain’s own long-term memory processing. EMDR is a specialist therapy and requires specific training and supervised accreditation. I have a certification level 2 practitioner accreditation in EMDR.

EMDR therapy has several complex components from assessment, appropriateness testing, and preparation work before a “target memory” of distress is worked upon. At its completion, over 12 - 24 sessions, a participant has reprocessed and thereby removed the emotional pain contents of an uncomfortable trauma experience (memory). In the least, what typically remains is a memory of the event as information without emotional-charge.