Eye Movement Desentitisation and Reprocessing
EMDR is used with clients who have experienced Trauma. This trauma can be experienced from current stressful events or from past events when it is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD.
When a person is suffering from a trauma, the brain has failed to successfully process the trauma and it gets stuck in the central nervous system. The body fails to recognise that the person is now safe. Instead it reacts as though danger is current, and this throws the person out of balance on many levels, including emotional and physical. EMDR is unique because it facilitates the processing of information that has become 'stuck' in the central nervous system. Brain scans have actually captured information transferring from one side of the brain to another as a person experiences an EMDR session. The same cannot be said for other forms of counselling.
The process is carried out by the therapist facilitating bi-lateral eye movements for the client, whilst the client ‘relives’ the events of the trauma by seeing it, as if they were watching it, as scenery passing by, from the window of a train. Whilst seeing this event the negative belief associated with the event is repeated by the client in the present tense. No words are spoken out loud during this process.
An example of a trauma: a client has had a car accident where another car drove into their car. The trauma for the client is getting stuck in their badly damaged car and they fear they are going to die if the car bursts into flames before they can be rescued. The memory of the fear and image of the damaged car is stuck and keeps returning into the client’s mind at unexpected times. This is the event that is going to be ‘relived’ and the negative belief is ‘I am helpless’. During the process the client reprocesses old dysfunctional information and connects with presently held adaptive and functional information which in this example could be ‘I am safe, it is only the door that is jammed’
The counsellor takes the client through a psychological screening prior to treatment to assess suitability and cognitive ability. Relaxation techniques and safety behaviours to cope with the stress evoked during the EMDR are discussed and learnt before any processing is started.
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