# EMDR therapy



## Shadow123 (Sep 13, 2019)

Anyone heard of it? I think its a good form of therapy especially for issue caused by trauma.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

My therapist wants me to try this. I'd be interested to hear if anyone's had any experiences with it. Problem is, I'd have to do video conferencing to do it (and the reason I got therapy is because I can't do things like that) and I'd have to buy a camera (which I can't really afford). I also don't really think it will help. I don't really have traumatic memories to process (aside from my nightmares).


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## Saeta (Jul 31, 2018)

I see it all over the place, but I don't see how any kind of therapy that doesn't involve examining your thought process will help with social anxiety.


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## lily (Nov 9, 2018)

thank you, sounds like something that can work:

"One proposal is that *EDMR achieves this effect through impacting working memory*.[66] The proposal is that* the degradation in working memory causes a distancing effect, enabling the client to 'stand back' from the trauma*. This enables the client to re-evaluate the trauma and their understanding of it, because they can re-experience it whilst not feeling overwhelmed by it.[42] This effect may be achieved by bilateral stimulation. *By having the patient perform a bilateral stimulation task while retrieving memories of trauma, the amount of information they can retrieve about the trauma is limited*, and thus the resulting negative emotions are less intense.[67]
Bilateral stimulation may have other effects (see below).
Another proposal is that *EMDR enables 'dual attention' (recalling the trauma whilst keeping 'one foot in the present' assisted by BLS)*, *allowing the brain to access the dysfunctionally stored experience and stimulate the innate processing system*, allowing it to transform the information to an adaptive resolution."

Ok I just don't understand these parts I read and and that I put in bold and underlined.
-do they mean that EMDR impacts working the memory and as you try to work your way down to go back to remembering the negative/hurtful events, it will cause a 'distancing effect', *with EMDR*?
-by having a patient perform a bilateral stimulation talk while retrieving memories of trauma, the amount of information they can retrieve about the trauma is *limited*, *in EMDR* _or_ *in how your system works*?
-what do they mean that EMDR enables dual attention (recalling the trauma whilst "keeping '*one* foot in the present', do they mean like the above what they're talking about if they're saying again that EMDR bilateral stimulation causes a distancing effect?
-so 'innate processing system' means your *inner body-functioning processing system* which will allow the traumatic memories to transform its information to an adaptive resolution?

Thank you if anyone can help me define not really understanding these parts that I read,


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

@lily I'm reading Shapiro's self-help book _Getting Past Your Past_. There hasn't really been an explanation for how it works, and I can't really answer your questions. I suspect, though, that the bilateral stimulation/eye movement part is either a red herring, which, if it does help, helps via a placebo effect (ie. if you believe that it helps, then it does make the therapy more effective) or that it's diluting the emotional intensity of the memory by forcing the patient to divide their attention between the memory and the bilateral stimulation task. This could certainly reduce the intensity of the memory, and it reminds me an awful lot of the old hypnotist's trick of asking the patient to remember an upsetting event while at the same time reassuring the patient that they feel completely comfortable (ie. suggestion). But I haven't had a chance to look at the studies yet.

Because memories have to be reconstructed when they're recalled, changing the memory in the present can impact how it will be recalled in the future. So, having a patient recall a memory at a less intense level of emotion (by forcing them to pay attention to bilateral stimulation at the same time) may allow the therapist to alter how the patient sees their memory (through reframing); this altered memory may then be the new memory which is recalled when triggered by external conditions, instead of the old memory, and this new memory will lack the emotional intensity of the former memory. So "reprocessing" is really "reinterpreting traumatic experiences in a way that makes them adaptive instead of maladaptive".

Just how it seems to me at this point, anyway.


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## lily (Nov 9, 2018)

@truant, thanks for trying to answer my questions 

How is the book by Shapiro, _Getting Past Your Past_, it sounds like it could be a good or useless book, thanks


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

lily said:


> How is the book by Shapiro, _Getting Past Your Past_, it sounds like it could be a good or useless book, thanks


I didn't find it very useful. I was hoping for an in-depth explanation of the theory behind it, but that probably wasn't reasonable, considering it's for a lay audience. It outlines the general process (how to identify touchstone memories) and how to manage emotional responses with a few different techniques (safe place, breathing exercises, visualization, etc.), but most of the book is success stories (and I'm always kind of wary about therapeutic results that sound too good to be true). Since there's nothing really in the way of clinical transcripts, it's hard to see how the therapy is actually being done. I guess it was okay as an introduction. There's a clinical guide on Amazon which is probably better, but I can't afford to buy it.


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## lily (Nov 9, 2018)

Thanks for your reply!


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