How can emdr help

Each phase helps you work through emotional distress and trauma, then learn skills to cope with current and future stress. The first phase involves getting your complete history. This could include discussing painful memories, events, or experiences from your past, as well as your current stresses. Based on your history, you and your therapist will develop a treatment plan that targets specific memories or incidents. During this phase, your therapist will help you learn some ways to deal with stress and anxiety, such as doing mental exercises.

First, your therapist will have you select one of the targeted memories you selected in phase one. You'll identify several components of the targeted memory:. You'll also be asked to identify a positive belief about yourself related to the mental picture of the memory and rate this belief according to how true it is.

While you focused on the targeted memory, your therapist will lead you through stimulation sets. These sets may include eye movements, tactile taps, or auditory tones. After each stimulation set, your therapist will instruct you to clear your mind and discuss any insights, thoughts, memories, feelings, or images that came to mind. If you're still experiencing negative sensations, they will become the focus of the next set.

This process continues until the target memory no longer distresses you. EMDR is designed to break any associations you have between certain memories and negative symptoms.

The fifth phase of EMDR strengthens the positive belief you identified in phase three. If you want to change your positive belief to something else, this is the time to do so.

When you aren't experiencing distress related to the target memory any longer, your therapist will ask you to focus on your positive belief. While thinking of the target memory and positive belief, your therapist will take you through more stimulation sets. After you have strengthened your positive belief, your therapist will ask you to note if you have any sort of physical response while thinking of the target memory and the positive belief.

The purpose of this is to identify any residual distress. If you're still experiencing tension, your therapist will take you through more stimulation sets until it's resolved. Closure is used to end every session. During this phase, you and your therapist will discuss the positive steps you've made and how to keep them going on a daily basis.

Your therapist may assign homework to help maintain progress between sessions. Typical homework assignments include:. Every new session begins with reevaluation. You and your therapist will discuss your current psychological state and whether the treatment and self-relaxation techniques are working. They will ask if any targeted memories have arisen since the previous session.

At this point, you'll also determine if you need to work through other targeted memories you identified in phase one. Some potential benefits of this therapeutic approach include:.

The treatment helped reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as improving self-esteem. A body scan is a meditative technique in which a person scans their body from head to toe to notice the physical sensations that are occurring.

At the end of each session, the therapist will stabilize the client using the self-control techniques that they discussed in phase 2. The therapist will explain what the client can expect between sessions.

They will also ask the client to keep a record of any negative experiences that occur so that they can target them in the next meeting. The final phase involves a review of the effectiveness of the treatment so far. The therapist and client will also identify any additional traumatic effects to target. Research suggests that EMDR may also treat symptoms that accompany a traumatic experience, such as self-harm, stress , and anger.

Preliminary research supports its application for some of these issues, such as psychotic symptoms and chronic pain. In some cases, people may choose to do EMDR alongside other treatment options for the best results.

Other studies that the EMDR Institute cite showed very positive outcomes for the majority of participants after six to 12 sessions. A research study looked at 24 randomized controlled trials that support the effectiveness of EMDR therapy for the treatment of trauma. Some research indicates that EMDR may be effective for other mental health issues. For example, it may have a positive effect on psychotic symptoms in people with both psychosis and PTSD , such as:.

Research also suggests that the benefits of EMDR persist over time. The authors of a small study reported that people who underwent EMDR treatment for depression were less likely than those in the control group to experience relapse or problems relating to depression in the year following treatment.

Doctors generally consider EMDR therapy to be a safe treatment. It typically causes fewer adverse reactions than medications for depression and trauma symptoms. Also, unlike some medications, EMDR may maintain its effectiveness after treatment ends. These symptoms will typically resolve as treatment continues. Individuals should tell their therapist about their experiences between sessions so that they can work on new memories and symptoms in future sessions.

Individuals who would like to know more about EMDR should speak to a doctor or mental health professional who specializes in the practice. A growing body of research suggests that it is effective and safe in reducing distress, anxiety, and other symptoms.

People who would like to know more about EMDR treatment should speak to their doctor or a licensed therapist. This explanation has many similarities to reciprocal inhibition. Given the infancy of the field of neurobiology, the physiological foundations of all psychotherapies are currently unknown, and therefore, all neurobiological models of psychotherapy are speculative.

Testing of hypotheses about the neurological mechanisms of any form of psychotherapy and most pharmaceuticals awaits the development of advanced brain imaging techniques. Rauch, van der Kolk, and colleagues conducted positron emission studies of patients with PTSD in which they were exposed to vivid, detailed narratives which they had written about their own traumatic experiences. Patients showed heightened activity only in the right hemisphere, in the areas most involved in emotional arousal, and heightened activity on the right visual cortex, reflecting the flashbacks reported by these patients.

These findings indicate that PTSD symptoms are reflected in actual changes in brain activity. Findings indicated metabolic changes after EMDR in two specific brain regions. First, there was an increase in bilateral activity of the anterior cyngulate. Second, there appeared to be an increase in pre-frontal lobe metabolism. An increase in frontal lobe functioning may indicate improvement in the ability to make sense of incoming sensory stimulation.

Levin et al. Because there was no control group, there is no evidence that these effects were unique to EMDR; effective treatment of any kind may produce similar results. Lansing, K. He proposed that REM-like neurobiological mechanisms are facilitated by this shifting attention, resulting in the activation of episodic memories, and their integration into cortical semantic memory. Independent research by Christman, S. They determined that alternating leftward and rightward eye movements produced a beneficial effect for episodic, but not semantic, retrieval memory tasks.

See also Kuiken et al. All psychophysiological studies have indicated significant de-arousal. Neurobiological studies have indicated significant effects, including changes in cortical, and limbic activation patterns, and increase in hippocampal volume.

Aubert-Khalfa, S. Bossini L. Fagiolini, A. Neuroanatomical changes after EMDR in posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 19, Bossini, L. EMDR treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder, with focus on hippocampal volumes: A pilot study. Frustaci, A. Grbesa et al. Annals of General Psychiatry 9 Suppl 1 :S Harper, M. Traumatology , 15 , Kowal, J. Journal of Neurotherapy, 9 Part 4 , Lamprecht, F. Event-related potentials and EMDR treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Neuroscience Research, 49 , Landin-Romero, R. EMDR therapy modulates the default mode network in a subsyndromal, traumatized bipolar patient. Neuropsychobiology , 67 , Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 17, Levin, P. What psychological testing and neuroimaging tell us about the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD by eye movement desensitization and reprocessing EMDR.

Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 13, Nardo D et al. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 44, Oh, D. Changes in the regional cerebral perfusion after eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: A SPECT study of two cases. Ohta ni, T. Hemodynamic responses of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Neuroscience Research , 65, — Pagani, M. Nuclear Medicine Communications, 28, — Propper, R. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, , Richardson, R. Sack, M. Assessment of psychophysiological stress reactions during a traumatic reminder in patients treated with EMDR. Journal of Psychotraumatology and Psychological Medicine, 1, 47 The psychobiology of traumatic memory: Clinical implications of neuroimaging studies.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, , Each case is unique, but there is a standard eight phase approach that each clinician should follow. This includes taking a complete history, preparing the client, identifying targets and their components, actively processing the past, present and future aspects, and on-going evaluation.

The processing of a target includes the use of dual stimulation eye movements, taps, tones while the client concentrates on various aspects. At the end of EMDR therapy, previously disturbing memories and present situations should no longer be problematic, and new healthy responses should be the norm. The number of sessions depends upon the specific problem and client history. While every disturbing event need not be processed, the amount of therapy will depend upon the complexity of the history.

The clinician should teach the client these techniques during the preparation phase. The amount of preparation needed will vary from client to client.

In the majority of instances the active processing of memories should begin after one or two sessions. In the second study, treatment of PTSD has a positive effect on auditory verbal hallucinations, delusions, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, and self-esteem.

Individuals with schizophrenia may have experienced distressing life experiences or traumas that exacerbate their symptoms. Using EMDR therapy to process memories of such events may be helpful in alleviating stress and reducing symptoms.

In such cases, it would be assumed that treatment would be provided only after appropriate stabilization, and in the hands of an expert in this specialty area. Anecdotal reports have given preliminary support for this. However, more research needs to be conducted. Like psychoanalysis, EMDR is both an evolving theory about how information is perceived, stored and retrieved in the human brain and a specific treatment method based on this theory Shapiro, , We note there are some distinctive differences between hypnosis and EMDR therapy, which we would like to briefly highlight.

First, one of the major uses of hypnosis among clinical practitioners is to deliberately begin by inducing in the patient an altered state of mental relaxation. In contrast, when beginning EMDR mental relaxation is not typically attempted. In fact, deliberate attempts are often actually made to connect with an anxious i. In contrast, with EMDR attempts are made to maintain a duality of focus on both positive and negative currently held self-referencing beliefs, as well as the emotional arousal brought about by imaging the worst part of a disturbing memory.

Third, one of the proposed effects of hypnotizing a person is that they will have a decrease in their generalized reality orientation GRO: Shor, In contrast, in EMDR attempts are made towards repeatedly grounding the patient by referencing current feelings and body sensations to prevent the patient from drifting away from reality. EMDR therapy has been extensively researched as effective for problems based on earlier traumas. In addition, reports from clinicians over the past 25 years have indicated that EMDR therapy can be extremely effective when there are experiential contributors that need to be addressed.

Interview at least 3 clinicians to ask them what experience they have using EMDR with your particular problem. There is no indication that EMDR therapy will cause seizures.

In thousands of cases there have been only three reports of seizures occurring with people already diagnosed with epilepsy. Two of these cases occurred when using a lightbar. One case seemed to be caused by the processing of an old seizure. The client later reported that her experience made later seizures more manageable.

Many people are conscious of only a shadow of the experience, while others feel it to a greater degree. Unlike some other therapies, EMDR therapy clients are not asked to relive the trauma intensely and for prolonged periods of time.

In EMDR therapy, when there is a high level of intensity it only lasts for a few moments and then decreases rapidly. If it does not decrease rapidly on its own, the clinician has been trained in techniques to assist it to dissipate. The client has also been trained in techniques to immediately relieve the distress. The confusion appears to be due to a an inadequate awareness of the lack of placebo effects in treating PTSD; b a theoretical and methodological lack of distinction between EMDR therapy and exposure procedures; c debates over the importance of the eye movement component of EMDR; d poorly designed outcome studies; and e historical misinformation which then becomes confounded with empirical research findings.

However, some people may still be misinformed and the old misconceptions will be addressed below:. This is inaccurate.

EMDR therapy has been supported by more than twenty randomized studies and has been found superior in controlled studies to Veterans Administration V. It has also been compared to and found generally equal to cognitive behavioral therapy. While exposure therapy used hours of daily homework, EMDR has achieved equivalent results with none View Efficacy.

EMDR therapy has been found to be more rapid or superior on some measures to exposure therapy in 7 of 12 randomized studies. Exposure therapy uses hours of daily homework and EMDR uses none. In addition, the EMDR practices have little in common with exposure therapy.

A process analysis of the two found significant differences Rogers et al. The information processing model was articulated in and has been thoroughly described in three texts. A number of neuropsychologists have also given detailed theories and descriptions of reasons for the effects of the eye movements.

Numerous researchers have also articulated theories and conducted hypothesis driven research supporting the use of eye movements and other dual attention stimulation. For references and details see: What are some hypothesized mechanisms of action for eye movements in EMDR therapy? At this point, the research is clear that the eye movements have a positive effect, EMDR therapy is not based on traditional exposure principles, and it is widely accepted as an empirically supported treatment of trauma.

For a list of annotated studies see Research Overview. Skip to content.