VIDEO: Why EMDR Works

I found Laliotis’s description of EMDR quite refreshing – except for one quite significant omission (see below). I’ve always thought of EMDR – minus the controversial bilateral stimulation aspect – as an excellent example of a transtheoretical or transdiagnostic approach. Laliotis’ overall formulation of EMDR fits right in with my proposed understanding of such an approach. That is, the typical problem presented for psychotherapy (until shown otherwise) has a psychogenic or interpersonal causation; unprocessed experiences are stored as an imprint; the most problematic effects of such events cannot be significantly altered by a conscious act; and clients provide a more accurate understanding of their experiencing than any concept. Given those features, my proposed therapeutic approach is my concept of therapeutic catharsis (See PN, May/June 2012, or articles in PsycINFO), and which I view as based on the assumption that there exists a natural healing process for psychological injuries, just as there is one for physical illness/injuries. My reason for bringing my pet concept (its origin was my theoretical doctoral dissertation) into this post is because there are many, many instances in the EMDR literature of clients crying, and quite deeply so, in a case presentation that has quite a positive outcome. In one of Shapiro’s first articles (1989) about Eye Movement Desensitization, as it was called then, a young woman cried deeply, for “11/2 minutes,” over a childhood incident of “sexual molestation.” When asked how she felt, she replied: “I feel like I’ve been exorcised!” In the discussion of each of these cases in the EMDR literature, I’ve yet to see crying even suggested as a possible change agent. All other therapeutic approaches exhibit the same self-inflicted blind spot about the therapeutic effectiveness of crying. My concept of TC offers a criterion for differentiating between a therapeutic emotional release and one that is not. It’s very simple – though it took me years to formulate it. A therapeutic emotional release occurs when the client’s emotional experiencing arises in an unforced/ unprovoked way, i.e., when it occurs coincident with the client receiving sufficient support for her/his experiencing. The third and fourth stages in the EMDR protocol are excellent examples of unforced activation (Shapiro, 2001). The forced/provoked activation of a client’s emotional experiencing is not therapeutic, primarily because the unexpected occurrence actives too much unresolved stuff and overloads the nervous system’s ability to process it. It’s forced activation that has been erroneously referred to as “retraumatization,” and which, unfortunately, has been misapplied to any instance of heightened emotional experiencing, regardless of how it occurred.

Very helpful and informative to those who are not well-versed in this type of treatmetn.