A time and place for you
To develop insight and self awareness and freedom from those past experiences which haunt you
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)
What is EMDR ?
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing is a powerful therapeutic method to find healing from a wide range of personal and emotional difficulties. It has helped many thousands of people.
What People have said about EMDR?
EMDR has been described as ‘The revolutionary new therapy for freeing the mind and clearing the body and opening the heart’ Parnell, L., Transforming Trauma: EMDR (London Norton, 1997)
An article in the Times newspaper May 22nd 2004 quoted Dr David Servan-Schreiber, a leading US Psychiatrist as saying “A few sessions of EMDR are often enough to clear out the consequences of old suffering…..I do not know of any treatment in psychiatry, including the most powerful drugs that has reported results of this magnitude over three weeks’
In 2006 NICE (The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), highlighted EMDR as a treatment of choice for PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder). PTSD arises as a result of unresolved experience of trauma, memories of which are re-evoked as flashbacks, nightmares or body memories.
Examples of Trauma:
Accidents
Disasters
Difficult or complicated childbirth
Emotional distress
Childhood abuse or neglect
Bullying
Professional exposure to trauma, eg Emergence Services, Journalism
Experience of living through extreme situations
Migration
War.
Further Problems EMDR can help with.
Depression
Relational Problems
Anxiety based disorders including panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorders, phobias.
Abuse (verbal, physical, sexual)
Self-esteem issues (including body dysmorphia)
Performance anxiety
Addictions and substance abuse.
What does EMDR therapy involve?
In starting therapy the first thing is to find out whether EMDR is suitable for the concerns brought by the client ,and if so, to establish the specific events which need to be worked with.
In an EMDR session, the client is asked to focus on a selected upsetting event with its associated thoughts and emotions. Then, bilateral stimulation with eye movements or sound or tapping. Is begun. From time to time the therapist will stop and ask the client about their current state and to guide them in the process. Processing ends when after repeated viewing of the image associated with the upsetting event, the client is able to do so with an enhanced sense of well being. Typically the client will say the emotions or events have faded, and no longer feel disturbing.
EMDR is a non-drug, non-hypnotic process. It is non-directive and does not require the therapist to know details of the events that have led the client to therapy, only what happens during the process. EMDR is client led and always remains within their control. The process allows the natural self healing processes of the body to function..
Why revisit painful memories?
When painful memories are avoided they keep their disturbing power. They can unexpectedly and sometimes frighteningly affect our behaviour in the present. The suppressing of memories takes a lot of our energy for living, can lead to depression and continual exhaustion. With EMDR you can face the memory in a safe setting, without feeling overwhelmed. You can then move on, allowing memory and emotions to fade and to lose their power.
How does EMDR work?
At this point in the development of the therapy, we don’t really know the actual mechanism, although there are various theories. One theory compares the movement of the eyes during therapy with the movement that occurs naturally during dreaming, to speed up the client’s ability to move through the healing process.