EMDR—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing----is surgery on the brain without a scalpel that is based on eye movement (although other methods like “tapping” on the legs of the client or tick-tock sounds are also used). I can testify to the use of EMDR using eye movement as an incredibly amazing way to clear out negative thinking, behaviors, stress, trauma------nearly anything and everything. The only clinicians who might be shocked hearing this are those who are not trained in EMDR. Those who are trained in it and clients on whom it has been used are not. Both see amazing results-----as I have using it on clients with a full variety of traumas, fears, anxiety, depression, even personality disorders.
Here’s some explanation: Dream researchers from the 1960s who were investigating the effects of eye movements in the waking state, documented how, during psychological or emotional disturbance, rapid shifts in eye movement are correlated with shifts in cognitive content. What they discovered is that a disturbance in the thoughts or feelings focused on, pictured or felt while the eyes were moving back and forth, changed, or neutralized negative feelings, thoughts that caused stress or trauma in the subject so that it become just a kind of idea or a somewhat familiar movie inside the head. If a female child was raped by her father, EMDR can neutralize the terrible mental, emotional, and brain disturbances caused by that act. Thus that child would be able to tell you all the events of the rape in an almost matter-of-fact way, but WITHOUT its traumatic impact.
The bottom line is that goes like this: A client comes to me after witnessing her father get killed by a home intruder. After doing an assessment of approximately 2 hours in which questions about the client’s history, family illnesses, family problems, psychological issues, etc. are asked by me and answered by the client, I form a diagnosis and work out a treatment plan. This means that I have a handle on the central stressors and problems the client is grappling with. We then begin treatment the very next session. An appointment is set not far in the future. Within three to five sessions of an hour each, the client will feel great relief or be healed.