The mind can often heal itself naturally, in the same way as the body does. Much of this natural coping mechanism occurs during sleep, particularly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Francine Shapiro developed Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) in 1987, utilising this natural process in order to successfully treat Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Since then, EMDR has been used to effectively treat a wide range of mental health problems and is a recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
How the Brain Responds to Trauma
Most of the time your body routinely manages new information and experiences without you being aware of it. However, when something out of the ordinary occurs and you are traumatised by an overwhelming event (e.g. a car accident) or by being repeatedly subjected to distress (e.g. childhood neglect), your natural coping mechanism can become overloaded. This overloading can result in disturbing experiences remaining frozen in your brain or being “unprocessed”. Such unprocessed memories and feelings are stored in the limbic system of your brain in a “raw” and emotional form, rather than in a verbal “story” mode. This limbic system maintains traumatic memories in an isolated memory network that is associated with emotions and physical sensations, and which are disconnected from the brain’s cortex where we use language to store memories. The limbic system’s traumatic memories can be continually triggered when you experience events similar to the difficult experiences you have been through. Often the memory itself is long forgotten, but the painful feelings such as anxiety, panic, anger or despair are continually triggered in the present. Your ability to live in the present and learn from new experiences can therefore become inhibited. EMDR helps create the connections between your brain’s memory networks, enabling your brain to process the traumatic memory in a very natural way.
What could we expect a session to entail?
EMDR utilises the natural healing ability of your body. After a thorough assessment, you will be asked specific questions about a disturbing memory. Eye movements, like those during REM sleep, will be recreated simply by asking you to watch the therapist’s finger moving backwards and forwards across your visual field. Sometimes, a bar of moving lights or headphones is used instead. The eye movements will last for a short while and then stop. You will then be asked to report back on the experiences you have had during each of these sets of eye movements. Experiences during a session may include changes in thoughts, images and feelings. With repeated sets of eye movements, the memory tends to change in such a way that it loses its painful intensity and simply becomes a neutral memory of an event in the past. Other associated memories may also heal at the same time. This linking of related memories can lead to a dramatic and rapid improvement in many aspects of your life.
Who would deliver the session/how would the clinician be qualified/what professional quals/accreditation/experience will they have?
All EMDR therapists will have completed a three-part training programme with a recognised EMDR training organisation. Usually, EMDR therapists are also accredited CBT therapists.
How long are the sessions?
50 minutes but it is not uncommon for some therapists to run 90-minute sessions when delivering re-processing sessions.
How many sessions would be needed on average?
Difficult to say, depends on how many memories are targeted for processing and if there are other co-morbid difficulties (physical and or mental) which need to be considered. In my experience it can range from 8 – 20 but in some cases more.