EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is an innovative scientifically validated psychotherapeutic approach that accelerates the treatment of a wide range of difficulties, such as emotional difficulties caused by difficult experiences in the individual’s life, phobias, posttraumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, traumatic death, grief and traumatic events in childhood, sexual abuse, accidents and natural disasters.
What is EMDR and how does it work?
Within each person there is physiological information processing system by which new experiences and information are processed and assimilated as healthy memories. The information is stored on networks that contain related thoughts, images, emotions and feelings.
Traumatic experiences and persistent unmet interpersonal needs during periods of development can produce blockages in the capacity to process information. Therefore this information is stored in a dysfunctional manner in the brain. When stored information related to a traumatic experience is not fully processed, it cannot be used or integrated into the life of the individual. Consequently it produces reactions like fear, panic, sadness, repetitive dreams related to the experience, and flashbacks, among others.
When we perform EMDR, what we do is stimulate – through eye movements or other bilaterally stimulation- the information processing system. This helps the brain reorganize the dysfunctional information so the individual can assimilate the traumatic experience and be able to remember the event with the least possible pain. Thus, the memory ceases to affect in the present.