Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

What is EMDR ?
How does EMDR work?
Stages of the EMDR treatment process
Here’s a quick tour of our EMDR facility

What is EMDR ?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an acknowledged psychotherapy, designed and developed by Dr.Francine Shapiro that uses regular personal interactions in combination with eye and hand movement and other engaging techniques to assist individuals to get rid of negative associations with memories of upsetting incidents. The therapy aims to help a person positively change behaviour in order to tame the problems in the anticipated ways.It was originally developed to attend to manifestations of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and phobias.

The Theory behind EMDR treatment

The EMDR therapy relies on the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model (Shapiro, 2001a) to elucidate and predict the efficacy of the treatment.
Shapiro F. (2001a). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing – Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures. New York, NY: Guilford.
One of the key beliefs of the AIP model is the understanding that like our body recovers from a physical wound by the virtue of the body’s internal mechanism, our mind also repairs the mental wounds inflicted during negative interactions. The multiple elements of each experience are processed and stored as memories in an accessible and usable form. Memories have a linked network of images, thoughts, sensations and emotions. When new associations are made with already stored elements in the memory, learning takes place.

During an adverse traumatic incident, the information processing function may get compromised because of the excessive negative feeling interfering with the process. As a result, the memory is cached without the correct associative connections. These incompletely stored memories that are not entirely processed become the cause for numerous mental disordersincluding e.g. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), chronic addiction, affective disorders, chronic pain and phobias.

How does EMDR work?

The EMDR therapy sessions involve revisiting your traumatic experiences or triggers in already agreed brief doses while the therapist uses hand movements and other tactile techniques to guide the individual’s eye movements side by side (or other sensory input modality), like viewing a pendulum swing, hand tapping etc.

The objective of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing treatment is to complete the information processing of the dysfunctional memories by linking the targeted memory to more adaptive information. The experience is thus stored with the right set of emotions. This helps the person process the past encounters and sort out the feelings they have about them in a safe space. In turn, the negative emotions are replaced by positive sentiments that will encourage healthier habits and relationships.

Stages of the EMDR treatment process

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy is an eight-stage treatment.

Stage 1: Understanding the background and planning the treatment

Like in any medical diagnosis, understanding the history of the patient is crucial to plan the appropriate treatment. This stage also includes talking about the trauma and identifying potential traumatic memories to treat specifically.

Stage 2: Preparation

The clinician helps set realistic level of expectations. In this session the therapist talks about, and trains if necessary, self-control measures that the individual must practice to maintain a continuum during and between sessions. During this stage, the therapist discusses the relationship between the trauma and the addiction to explain the treatment objective of active processing of the trauma.

Stage 3: Assessment

In the third stage of the EMDR treatment, the client and the therapist together identify the specific memories that are to be targeted for the particular session and all the associated components like a vivid image or physical sensations for the target memory.

Stage 4: Desensitization

Your therapist will then begin using EMDR therapy techniques to treat your targeted memories. During these sessions, you will be asked to focus on a negative thought, memory, or image.

Your therapist will simultaneously have you do specific eye movements. The bilateral stimulation may also include taps or other movements mixed in, depending on your case.

After the bilateral stimulation, your therapist will ask you to let your mind go blank and notice the thoughts and feelings you’re having spontaneously. After you identify these thoughts, your therapist may have you refocus on that traumatic memory, or move on to another.

If you become distressed, your therapist will help bring you back to the present before moving on to another traumatic memory. Over time, the distress over particular thoughts, images, or memories should start to fade.

Stage 5: Installation

In this stage, the clinician attempts to intensify the power of the positive cognitions to try and replace the negative ones.

Stage 6: Body Scan

This stage checks the client’s body for any physical response to the targeted memory and is used to adjust the body responses.

Stage 7: Closure

This is the stage in between reprocessing. Here the client is asked to be aware of the disturbances that might arise in between sessions and make notes in order to address the issues in future sessions.

Stage 8: Re-evaluation and reiteration for future treatment

In the final phase, the client and the therapist, individually and jointly,evaluate progress after these sessions to check for optimal treatment effects.

At Silver Lining, the process measures that we ardently follow during the implementation of EMDR treatment at our Orange County, California, facility are aimed to support quality programs that:

Provide the conducive environment to our patrons to initiate and facilitate the self-exploration process.
Assists our clinicians to help individuals in self-reflection, discussion, and building of continuing collaborations among the healing population.
Focus on an individual’s holistic healing in all spheres of their life – social, physical, emotional, creative and cognitive.
Establish receptive and positive relationships.
Engage with their families and learn to appreciate their unique perspectives and contributions.
Use documentation to study, interpret and make visible the healing process of individuals.

These approaches support the individuals as they learn to accept and move beyond their own deep-rooted negative beliefs along a developmental continuity and make way for a smoother transition from negativity to acceptance to ultimate positivity.