# EMDR therapy?



## Melinda (Feb 5, 2009)

(Stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy) My therapist thinks it could help me. I am scheduled to try it sometime this month, but I don't know that much about it, and I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried it before. If so, did it help any?


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## leomouse (Dec 1, 2008)

i've heard of it and some people say it's effective, tell us how it goes!


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## CopadoMexicano (Aug 21, 2004)

reading from previous threads I think CBT is the way to go to unwash all the negative programming permanently if you stick with the therapy.


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## Traci (Jan 26, 2004)

Intresting, cause my therpist just told me today she would like to try this as well and gave me homework to look it up.


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## screwjack (Dec 19, 2008)

I've read it's good if you have had major traumas in your life like physical/sexual abuse, helps rewire the brain so you stop repeating the trauma. My therapist used it on me but it was a really sloppy approach on her part she just did the eye movements without really focusing on any specfic events in my life. The theory is that the cbt techniques that are coupled with it are what do more than the eye movements, what the eye movements do if anything are a hotly contested topic.


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## Cheeky (Apr 1, 2009)

Your post was the first I've heard about this. I did a bit of reading up on it and am curious. I just started CBT so doing this as well probably wouldn't be a good idea but I'm gonna ask my psychologist her opinion on it next time. Please make sure to post again on this thread (or message me) to let me know how it goes. Thanks


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## Melinda (Feb 5, 2009)

Thanks for all the input! I think I'm scheduled to have it done on Monday, so I'll be sure to let you all know what happens. 

My therapist has asked me to think of a specific traumatizing event in my life to focus on, but I honestly couldn't tell her just one. I was never physically/sexually abused but I was harassed (verbally and physically) all throughout my years in elementary and middle school--so it isn't one isolated event but instead it's like the same event repeated over and over in slightly different ways. I don't know, hopefully EMDR will still help me. I'm willing to try it--nothing to lose, right?


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## Melinda (Feb 5, 2009)

UPDATE: Hi everyone, I finally completed one session of EMDR with my therapist this morning and I thought I'd let everyone know how it went. I can definitely say it made a difference, but I don't know if that was good or bad in my case. 

What was done with me was this: my therapist had me think of one time in my life where I felt secure and safe, and once where I felt most anxious around my peers. Then as she sat directly in front of me, she moved her arm back and forth and instructed me to follow her finger with my eyes while focusing on the negative or positive event and a thought I associated with it. She also stopped after a few minutes each time to ask me how I was feeling or what I had noticed mentally. 

The most striking thing for me was that I got a headache almost immediately and my eyes went blurry when having to follow her hand. Other than that, the session brought up a few things that I had never really dealt with before surrounding my family and my life at school. I know that all therapy is supposed to do that, but this did so in a very strange way. It's hard to describe. It made me focus on the feelings of abandonment I felt from my family and authority figures in my life (teachers who stood by and watched while I was getting harassed--even physically, and my parents who refused to let me transfer schools or pull me out of gym class) And I never really did focus on those feelings before. At the time, it was all I could do to avoid them in the first place. 

Overall, I felt very depressed and a little disoriented afterwards. I took a nap this afternoon and felt a lot better, but I don't think I'm going to continue unless she gives me a very good reason why I need to do so. It also made me kind of nauseated...I'm not sure why. I'm all for exploring feelings and working things out but if doing so makes me worthless for an afternoon and depressed for the entire day with no real resolution then....no thanks. 

(Keep in mind though, everyone is different and I could definitely see how this kind of therapy may be extremely useful to somebody else who was similarly harassed or abused. I'm not going to say people should or should not try it.)

Even though this didn't work for me the first time around, maybe if I end up having it next week it will prove more beneficial. I just need to talk to my therapist and make sure she understands what happened today in full before thinking about another session. I hope this helps at least to inform people, and I'll be sure to keep you all in the loop about next week.


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## LALoner (Dec 3, 2008)

I never tried EMDR, no I one I know whose done it says it worked. I've noticed that the studies which say its a miracle cure all seem to be done by the person who invented it.

note: that last claim was based on five minutes of googling and stuff.


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## tictoxic (Apr 28, 2009)

my mom's a social worker and just went through training for it last weekend. she's going to have a coworker try it out on her and if it helps with her ptsd at all, she said she'd make me appointment as well.


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## Traci (Jan 26, 2004)

I've done it once so far and it did bring up some things. I'm gonna keep working at it. From my research, for my particular stuff I don't think it's one time cure thing so, all I can do is keep doing it.


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## gozinsky (Mar 11, 2008)

I did this for quite a while and it didn't do anything for me.


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## Drew (Jan 23, 2006)

My experience with EMDR for my social anxiety:
http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/treatment/products/11.html


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## deeds14 (Jul 9, 2009)

> Intresting, cause my therpist just told me today she would like to try this as well and gave me homework to look it up.


She has to get professionally certified in it...


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## sadie08 (Sep 17, 2008)

*It works to some degree*

I did EMDR therapy for about 3 months last year, and it did help me reshape the way I thought about myself as it related to some very specific traumatic experiences from my childhood, and for a while it even seemed to help my self esteem and SA but a year and a half later, I'm finally embarking on REAL CBT therapy - from what I have read and people I have talked to that is the best approach for changing things. The EMDR is helpful but I can't see it overall ridding you of SA.


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## julie reynolds (Aug 2, 2009)

*Emdr*

I used EMDR with a trained therapist for about 12 sessions to work out things that had happened to me as a child. I had great success with it, so much so that I went back to grad school so that I could get certified in it as well.

It is a very powerful thing and a therapist should take time to get it right. So much can come up that you should do a safe place exercise first before you get into anything else. You also do need to take care of yourself afterwards as it can take a lot out of you for a bit. Quiet time or even a nap is wonderful!

Talk or CBT therapy tends to be done in 50 minute sessions once a week, where EMDR may need to be done in longer or more frequent sessions to completely resolve an issue.

EMDR is designed to work with anxiety and the after effects of trauma. You can read more at www.emdr.com and search for a trained therapist on the site.


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## britisharrow (Jun 18, 2009)

Melinda said:


> (Stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy) My therapist thinks it could help me. I am scheduled to try it sometime this month, but I don't know that much about it, and I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried it before. If so, did it help any?


There is a LOT to be said for this area of research and I personally believe it works because I've used it. I haven't used it yet on the major areas that are troubling me, but I am set to do so with a therapist.

The idea that we can desensitise hurtful or painful memories or feelings by rapidly moving our eyes is scientifically proven. The eyes are connected to the mechanisms of memory (that is why when you think of an image your eyes move diagonally).

Check out EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques, www.emofree.com ) I've found this to be very effective at desensitising memories and reducing anxiety, but you have to take what you know about Western psychology and put it on the shelf. EFT looks weird, you move your eyes about, hum a tune, tap on the body, that's enough to put people off it altogether. The feedback from those who have actually tried it on themselves I have found to be predominantly favourable.

By the way the EFT manual is free to download from that website and that's all you really need to be able to do it, there are also plenty of free videos on youtube, so you don't need to pay anything. They do sell DVDs which are worth buying further down the line if you like it, I like it because the guy who runs it is honest I know him to be the real deal).

EMDR is a form of that except you're just moving your eyes, go into with an open mind, you basically think about a bad memory or feeling and follow the lights (different machines are set up differently).


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## deeds14 (Jul 9, 2009)

Britisharrow, that's really interesting. Have there been any studies done on the success rate of that technique?


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## pboy (Jul 18, 2009)

Visual attention training techniques also aid mental processing.


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## britisharrow (Jun 18, 2009)

deeds14 said:


> Britisharrow, that's really interesting. Have there been any studies done on the success rate of that technique?


The proof at the moment is in what it's doing to people, as the research is conflicting over HOW it works. There's theories from psychological causes to energy disruptions.

What I would say is that HOW it works doesn't really matter so long as it works. Try typing the following into youtube: "eft" and "emdr".

Here's a little experiment, what colour is your front door? Okay so you know that because you have access to an image of it in your head, right?

So you can access images, and I don't know about you but a lot of the hurt about the past I feel comes with negative images in my head. People looking at me in ridicule, things I've done wrong, people criticising me.

Pick one of those memories, and run it like a film through your mind's eye. Choose a frame from the film that is the memory at its worst, the picture that sums up the worst feeling of hurt or humilation.

Think about this picture and the feeling of hurt and move your eyes rapidly from left to right for about 30 seconds. Keep concentrating on the image and the feelling, move your eyes rapidly left to right. Do two minutes of rapid eye movement on the image, feel free to add in sounds as well, such as someone saying "haha you're a loser" or whatever the comment is that hurt you.

You will notice that the image starts to fade, it becomes less hurtful. It doesn't seem as relevant to you anymore.

Now that's just a small part of EMDR or EFT, if you combine that with tapping this acts as a distraction which further forces the mind to fade the memory.

This is a very interesting area of research, I also like the NLP technique: take the that worst image, put a frame around it, turn it into an oil painting, step back from it. Put a lamp above it and a museum around it.

Suddenly the memory becomes a lot more objective and less personal, you depersonalise yourself from it. This is called changing the submodalities of the memory, this is all more advanced which you can get into if you find this kind of thing works for you.

In response to your direct question about research, there is research available in various books some of which I own, however as I said its disputed why the memories become less charged. Neuro Linguistic Programming is heavier on the research side because a lot of is based on already formed ideas about how our minds function - in fact NLP could be said to be simply a collection of techniques that use the mind most effectively.


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## deeds14 (Jul 9, 2009)

Thanks... i'm in grad school for social work and am always interested in learning new techniques. Are you a psychologist?


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## britisharrow (Jun 18, 2009)

deeds14 said:


> Thanks... i'm in grad school for social work and am always interested in learning new techniques. Are you a psychologist?


Hi Deeds I'm actually not far from you I'm a Sociology graduate. My interest and knowledge on EFT, NLP is entirely through searching for treatment for myself, that's the only thing that fuels my enthusiasm for it. I have no certification in psychology.

Tonight I was doing some reading on rapport and techniques we can use to establish rapport with people we don't know. You may well know this, basically when two people are in rapport they copy each others gestures subconsiously (drink at the same time, same posture, same breathing rate), since I found this out I've noticed it all the time personally and from looking around me.

The idea is to reverse it, and to on purpose copy someone (subtly), this fools their mind into thinking they are in rapport with you and you end up in rapport. Hypnotherapists use it, salespeople use it, it's tried and tested.

Here's a brief explanation on Youtube:






This is rapport as a technique taken to the extreme by Derren Brown, the British illusionist:


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## sadie08 (Sep 17, 2008)

I would caution that EMDR should really not be done on one's own, in my opinion. A trained therapist needs to be on hand to guide you and also be able to help you if you come up on something really traumatic that could send you into a flashback or something. You just never know what's going to come into your mind as you go through the therapy. Also my therapist used to always help bring me back to a "safe place" in my mind after the session since it may be difficult to entirely process a single issue in a single session. 

Also there are actually other methods besides using the eye movements, depends on what the patient is comfortable with. There are options for using visual, audio, and tactile techniques. The audio might be a pair of headphones that plays tones alternating in each ear. The tactile might be a pair of vibrating sensors you hold in your hand that alternate vibration between the sides. It is really about stimulating left brain and right brain alternating back and forth that disrupts or desensitizes the memory.

I found it TOO distracting to use audio and visual so the tactile worked well for me.


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