What are the advantages of EMDR therapy?

Question 1

How Many Session with the Therapist before he/she begins EDMR?

Answer

This depends upon the client's ability to "self-soothe" and use a variety of self-control techniques to decrease potential disturbance. The clinician should teach the client these techniques during the preparation phase. The amount of preparation needed will vary from client to client. In the majority of instances the active processing of memories should begin after one or two sessions.

Question 2

How do I know EDMR will work for me? How do I know I am a candidate for EDMR?

Answer

EMDR therapy has been extensively researched as effective for problems based on earlier traumas. In addition, reports from clinicians over the past 25 years have indicated that EMDR can be extremely effective when there are experiential contributors that need to be addressed. Read the book Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy by Shapiro and see if any of your problems are covered in the cases. Interview your clinician to ask her what experience she has using EMDR with your particular problem.

Question 3

Do I have to use eye movement? I wear contacts / have eye issues

Answer

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, which can be achieved by : 1) Tactile - (holding pulsers which can help in your hands or put under both your knees) 2) Auditory - (wearing headphones, listening to binural beats or sounds) 3) Visual - (moving eyes with the help of therapists hands or light on pulsers)

Question 4

Is EDMR a one session cure?

Answer

No. When Shapiro (1989a) first introduced EMDR into the professional literature, she included the following caveat: “It must be emphasized that the EMDR procedure, as presented here, serves to desensitize the anxiety related to traumatic memories, not to eliminate all PTSD-symptomology and complications, nor to provide coping strategies to victims” (p 221). In this first study, the focus was on one memory, with effects measured by changes in the Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD) scale. The literature consistently reports similar effects for EMDR with SUD measures of in-session anxiety. Since that time, EMDR has evolved into an integrative approach that addresses the full clinical picture.

Question 5

How many sessions will it take?

Answer

The number of sessions depends upon the specific problem and client history. However, repeated controlled studies have shown that a single trauma can be processed within 3 sessions in 80-90% of the participants. While every disturbing event need not be processed, the amount of therapy will depend upon the complexity of the history. In a controlled study, 80% of multiple civilian trauma victims no longer had PTSD after approximately 6 hours of treatment. A study of combat veterans reported that after 12 sessions 77% no longer had post-traumatic stress disorder.

Question 6

Is EDMR the same as Hypnosis?

Answer

No. There are a few distinctive differences between hypnosis and EMDR, which we would like to briefly highlight. First, one of the major uses of hypnosis among clinical practitioners is to deliberately begin by inducing in the patient an altered state of mental relaxation. In contrast, when beginning EMDR mental relaxation is not typically attempted. In fact, deliberate attempts are often actually made to connect with an anxious (i.e. an emotionally disturbing as opposed to relaxed) mental state. Second, therapists often use hypnosis to help a patient develop a single, highly focused state of aroused receptivity (Spiegel & Spiegel, 1978). In contrast, with EMDR attempts are made to maintain a duality of focus on both positive and negative currently held self-referencing beliefs, as well as the emotional arousal brought about by imaging the worst part of a disturbing memory. However, in this sense, EMDR does have a similarity to Spiegel's (Spiegel & Spiegel, 1978) split-screen cognitive restructuring technique. Third, one of the proposed effects of hypnotizing a person is that they will have a decrease in their generalized reality orientation (GRO: Shor, 1979). This induced decrease in a person's GRO is often utilized in order to promote an increase in fantasy and imagination, perhaps by capitalizing on an increase in trance logic (Orne, 1977). In contrast, in EMDR attempts are made towards repeatedly grounding the patient by referencing current feelings and body sensations to prevent the patient from drifting away from reality. Specific encouragement/inducement is made towards rejecting previously irrational/self-blaming beliefs in favor of a newly, reframed positive belief with an increase in subjective conviction about that belief. Shapiro and Forrest (1997) and Nicosia (1995) have also noted additional differences between hypnosis and EMDR.

Question 7

WHAT CAN EMDR DO FOR ME?

Answer

If stressful, negative experiences hit us when we are vulnerable, and we don’t receive the support and safety we need, the emotional and negative beliefs about ourselves can become “stuck” in our brains and debilitates our being when certain triggers happen as we go through life. At the time of the trigger we experience the same distress, pain, and sensations that we felt at the time the incident/experience happened. EMDR is very good at getting us “unstuck.” As the infographic above shows how our brain stores the distress before EMDR and how the information gets reorganized after EMDR to help us come up to date with who we are today and want to be as supposed to being stuck in the past. EMDR helps “unlock” the prison, allowing our brain to return to a healthy state. Figuratively speaking, you are then free to move, stretch your wings, and fly.

What is EMDR?

What conditions does EMDR treat?

Treatment