thanks to Mark for sending this to me. it's fascinating!

www.emdr.com

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories (Shapiro, 1989a, 1989b). Shapiro’s (2001) Adaptive Information Processing model posits that EMDR facilitates the accessing and processing of traumatic memories to bring these to an adaptive resolution. After successful treatment with EMDR, affective distress is relieved, negative beliefs are reformulated, and physiological arousal is reduced. During EMDR the client attends to emotionally disturbing material in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. Therapist directed lateral eye movements are the most commonly used external stimulus but a variety of other stimuli including hand-tapping and audio stimulation are often used (Shapiro, 1991). Shapiro (1995) hypothesizes that EMDR facilitates the accessing of the traumatic memory network, so that information processing is enhanced, with new associations forged between the traumatic memory and more adaptive memories or information. These new associations are thought to result in complete information processing, new learning, elimination of emotional distress, and development of cognitive insights. EMDR uses a three pronged protocol: (1) the past events that have laid the groundwork for dysfunction are processed, forging new associative links with adaptive information; (2) the current circumstances that elicit distress are targeted, and internal and external triggers are desensitized; (3) imaginal templates of future events are incorporated, to assist the client in acquiring the skills needed for adaptive functioning.

Hi Roxi and all here.

I do have some experience with EMDR with a qualified therapist ( you can find who is registered in your area from the EMDR websight ) Short background is needed.

I have 2 sisters along with myself that are working with EMDR, they have been doing this longer than I have.Thay have many more positive experiences than I have so based on their recommendations I thought I'd give it a try. It's deffinately very powerful work because ( from my experience ) I'm able to let go of neg. emotions tied to each experience that I work through and the energy is for the most part is gone whenever I think of that memory.

The actual work is usually with one experience at a time which allows the individual not to spend any more energy on the event when it comes up again. Seems too simple but that has been my experience and from what I hear from my sisters it is the same for them as well.

I'll share one experience as an example;

I am 54 years old male, from a very disfunctional family with a lot of sexually inapropriate behavior about. One day when I was about 5 maybe 6 I was in the bathroom right off the kitchen sitting on the toilet urinating. While I was going I was holding my penis down with my hand to be sure that it was going in, then suddenly my older brother burst in ( intentionally or not I do not know ) when he saw my hand "down there" he went out loudly told my mother that "Wally is holding his hand between his legs on the toilet!" Of course she burst in with horrible energy to scold me ( and I think to catch me in something as well ). Then I was forced to finish up go out and defend myself to her and the other family members present at the time. I'm pissed, embarrased and violated at the same time. It really sucked for a kid of that age and of course no one defended me either.

So anyway up until a couple of months ago whenever that memory came up I felt the ugly shame and hurt all over again, usually I would just shrug it off until it came to the present again. Well I brought it up to my therapist and we processed that event. I now have no "junk" around the event when it comes up. Just the knowledge that I was wronged and can give a soft moment to that little boy. It's still sad to remember but the energy behind the trauma is gone leaving more energy for me and him! It's nice. So now when I remember another event I can choose to process it or not, but when I do it usually turns out the same way.

Nice!!!!

So if this feels right give it a try. I am fortunate to have a therapist that I trust and is able to serve me in many ways but I initially went to her for EMDR so for me I feel blessed to have found her.

I wish the same for you.

Namaste; Wally

I did EMDR with my therapist once. It had a pretty amazing result. What the heck, I'll tell you the story. When I was a kid my dad used to make me do work around the house. No big deal, everyone has to shovel or pick up garbage or weed, right? Well, the problem with him was that he would a) supersize the job and b) make sure there was always some aspect of humiliation involved - the more public the better. So he didn't just make me shovel our walk. He made me shovel the ENTIRE walk. It was a huge, huge walk that went all the way from the back of our house, around the side, along the front, down the front lawn and down steep steps to the street. So it literally took me hours to do if we got a heavy snowfall. Worse yet, where the walk went along the front of the house it was placed just exactly where the roof dumped its load of snow and ice. So not only did it take all afternoon but it was scarey as hell cuz you never knew when the roof would let go ... (it's a 16 room house - big roof). And all this I had to do out front in full vision of all the other people living on the street, none of whom shovelled THEIR front walks. So here I am, a kid of 10, shovelling yet another winter's afternoon away (grew up in Vermont, when it still really snowed there). And I am muttering away to myself as I shovel, a running monologue about how this isn't fair, it's too much to do, noone else shovels their walk .... so that's the memory we worked with. Every single time I went back to it I experienced again the utter helplessness and hopelessness and humiliation I felt back then. The knowing that I'd just have to shovel it all over again the next day when the roof dumped it's load of snow and ice. The feeling of being so utterly expendable to my dad that he didn't care if a load of snow and ice fell on me and killed me or not, as long as his fucking walk was shovelled. So we're going over the memory and we start doing the EMDR and suddenly I am seeing it all from the outside and I am remembering that in my little monologues and diatribes against him I used to get pretty worked up and throw my shovel and yell and shake my fist and totally forget that I was out there in full view of the entire main street of my town ... putting on a little one-woman play where finally I was the hero. And the image was so GREAT - me, so totally caught up in my little play that the rest of the world just fell away and became my stage - I started laughing!!! And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed and I thought that what a fantastic kid I was to turn it all into a play and get so caught up in it... Imagine what those neighbors saw when they looked out their windows! A hot, sweaty, red-faced kid pitching her shovel into snowbanks and declaiming oratorically to noone and nothing! I still love that image, and still laugh over it. And NOW I also always remember that eventually the snow and ice DID fall at the wrong time, DID hit me on the head and knock me out, and I DID make a stand then - went right inside as soon as I woke up and screamed that I was never going to shovel that front walk again and I never did!!!!!
So, that's my story.