Today I want to talk about a therapy that I had never heard of until about a month ago – eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR. While it may be difficult for me to describe here, the good news is that it has shown promise in helping people with the emotional pain that can result from disturbing life experiences.
According to the EMDR Institute (www.emdr.com), the therapy shows that people can heal from psychological wounds, just like people can heal from physical wounds. EMDR has been used for over 25 years, and millions of people have benefitted from the therapy. EMDR has typically been used in dealing with trauma, but it can also apply to “everyday” memories, such as feelings of powerlessness. EMDR includes eight phases of treatment. Eye movements (or some other form of bilateral stimulation) are used during part of the session. For example, as specific aspects of memories are targeted by the patient, the patient is also instructed to use their eyes to follow the therapist’s hand movements. Although I am going to skip the specifics as to the idea of why this works, the net effect is that thoughts that bothered people change to thoughts that empower them. One big difference in EMDR from many other therapies is that this does not involve homework or a lot of speaking in detail with a therapist.
Honestly, I do not know of anyone who has undertaken this type of therapy, but it sounds fascinating. It seems that EMDR is relatively simple, but yet can do a lot of good. I think removing the speaking in detail and homework would be appealing to many people, and I also think this might be another option for people affected by depression.
How about you? Have you ever heard of EMDR? Does this seem like a therapy worth considering?