The “Magic” of EMDR

Advanced Clinical Fellow Ilana Friedman

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was discovered by happy accident. Dr. Francine Shapiro was rhythmically walking one day while thinking a painful thought and suddenly realized the thought had lost its painful charge. She wrote,

The primary component of the EMD procedure is the generation of rhythmic, multi-saccadic eye movements while the client concentrates on the memory to be desensitized. The effect of saccadic eye movements was discovered accidentally by the author when she noticed that recurring, disturbing thoughts were suddenly disappearing and not returning. Careful self-examination ascertained that the apparent reason for this effect was that the eyes were automatically moving in a multi-saccadic manner while the disturbing thought was being held in consciousness. The effect was that the thought disappeared completely and if deliberately retrieved was without its previously disturbing emotional correlate. (Shapiro, 1989, p. 201)

Dr. Shapiro developed her discovery into a treatment protocol, which was renamed EMDR in 1991, “...to reflect the insights and cognitive changes that occurred during treatment, and to identify the information processing theory that she developed to explain the treatment effects” (EMDR Institute Inc., n.d.).

Bilateral stimulation is created using either “tappers” (handheld vibrating buzzers), following a light or the clinician's hand going back and forth, and/or listening to a sound going back and forth between your ears while processing a traumatic event or negative belief. It is gentle and does not require you to retell the story of your traumatic event, you can process it internally. It even allows you to replace negative beliefs with more desirable positive ones.

As the gold-standard treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the evidence for EMDR’s efficacy in treating PTSD is robust,

... there are more than 30 RCTs showing EMDR’s strong clinical effects for adults diagnosed with PTSD, and 4 articles for children with full/partial diagnosed PTSD. Results show that the provision of standard EMDR therapy significantly decreases or eliminates PTSD diagnosis and symptoms, with results maintained at follow-up. (Maxfield, 2019, p. 241)

Although EMDR was initially studied for the treatment of PTSD, the research and its usage has expanded greatly to a number of other conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and complex trauma, and research is ongoing. “It was also applied to other disorders because it can help resolve and reprocess memories of traumatic experiences that can contribute, as risk, precipitating and predisposing factors to the development of mental disorders” (Balbo et al., 2019, p. 23).

The theory behind the effectiveness of EMDR is the adaptive information processing (AIP) model, “... an inherent system in all of us that is physiologically geared to process information to a state of mental health” (Shapiro, 2002). This AIP system can be stalled due to trauma, which is where EMDR shines. “In EMDR Therapy it is presumed that the neurophysiological activity of the AIP system in the brain leads to a reduction in distress and/or negative emotions that can be encoded as a result of upsetting experiences, leading to integration of upsetting information into a more adaptive, positive state” (Hase, 2021, p. 2). It is a way to help you unblock and allow this natural process to take place and create healing and integration.

References

Balbo, M., Cavallo, F., & Fernandez, I. (2019). Integrating EMDR in Psychotherapy. Journal of psychotherapy integration, 29(1), 23–31. https://doi.org/10.1037/int0000136

EMDR Institute Inc. (n.d.). History of EMDR. https://www.emdr.com/history-of-emdr/

Hase, M. (2021). The structure of EMDR therapy: A guide for the therapist. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 660753–660753. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.660753

Maxfield, L. (2019). A clinician's guide to the efficacy of EMDR therapy. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 13(4), 239-246. DOI: 10.1891/1933-3196.13.4.239

Shapiro, F., (Ed.). (2002). EMDR as an integrative approach: Experts of diverse orientations explore the paradigm prism. American Psychological Association. doi: 10.1037/10512-000

Shapiro, F. (1989). Efficacy of the eye movement desensitization procedure in the treatment of traumatic memories. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2(2), 199–223. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.2490020207