Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprogramming (EMDR)

What is EMDR?

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a fairly new, nontraditional type of psychotherapy. It's growing in popularity, particularly for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD often occurs after experiences such as military combat, physical assault, rape, or car accidents.

EMDR approaches psychological issues in an unusual way. It does not rely on talk therapy or medications. Instead, EMDR uses a patient's own rapid, rhythmic eye movements. These eye movements dampen the power of emotionally charged memories of past traumatic events.

What Can You Expect From EMDR?

The therapist will move their fingers back and forth in front of your face and ask you to follow these hand motions with your eyes. At the same time, the EMDR therapist will have you recall a disturbing event, related to the issue that needs to be resolved. This will include the emotions and body sensations that go along with it. As the eye movements continue, the therapist will look for signs manifested in the clients body showing movement of the 'blockage' that the issue is making. There will be several short bursts of following eye movements with rests in between to allow the mind to process the movement of the emotions to be released. Once a good conclusion is reached, the session will be concluded with a different set of eye movements.

This treatment provides rapid and long lasting relief of many symptoms associated with negative emotions. Usually, a resolution of some sort can be found in one session, but some issues may take two or three sessions. Every person is different and each client is treated in an individual way.