EMDR

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a proprietary^, psychotherapy in which the patient recalls a traumatic event while simultaneously undergoing bilateral stimulation that can consist of moving the eyes from side to side, vibrations or tapping movements on different sides of the body, or tones delivered through one ear, then the other, via headphones. The technique was developed by Francine Shapiro to resolve the development of trauma-related disorders caused by exposure to distressing, traumatising, or negative life events, such as rape or military combat. According to Shapiro's theory,when a traumatic or distressing experience occurs, it may overwhelm usual cognitive and neurological coping mechanisms. The memory and associated stimuli of the event are inadequately processed, and are dysfunctionally stored in an isolated memory network. The goal of EMDR therapy is to process these distressing memories, reducing their lingering influence and allowing clients to develop more adaptive coping mechanisms.
Although some clinicians may use EMDR for other problems, its research development was primarily for disorders stemming from distressing life experiences, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)^[8][9]. EMDR was found to be an efficacious treatment for PTSD.



^{Thursday I saw a new therapist to perform this on me. Mine isn't qualified to do it. So i was scared to have to work with a second new person and to have to retell her my story quickly. I've been seeing my other counselor since February so for 10 months she has slowly gotten to hear my story. Now there's this new person that wants to know about me but we don't get 10 months. It was very exhausting telling her all of these things. But i told her and then we started on the actual EMDR. She explained every-thing she was going to do then would do it and ask me what my experience was. At first I told her it wasn't working. It felt stupid. Her waving her hands in front of my face. How was that going to do anything? Then out of no where I broke down crying and the memory we were working on was one of the mildest. One about my mom. I felt like my brain was broken for two days. If that is my reaction to the mildest memory what will happen to me when we work on the worst memories? I hope this actually helps and doesn't just make things worse.}