[Reblog] Dealing With Trauma: What is EMDR

“Initially EMDR was utilized and studied as a therapy for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) which was itself a relatively new diagnosis for an age-old human affliction. More than 20 controlled clinical trials of EMDR have now been completed and reported, attesting to its value and demonstrating its usefulness across all ages, genders, and cultures for post-traumatic stress disorders. Tens of thousands of clinicians have been trained in EMDR, and have applied the defining protocols of this psychotherapy to many other conditions, including: Personality disorders, eating disorders, panic attacks, performance anxiety, complicated grief, stress reduction, dissociative disorders, disturbing memories, addictions, phobias, pain disorders, sexual and/or physical abuse and body dismorphic disorders.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a cost-effective non-invasive evidence-based method of psychotherapy that facilitatesadaptive information processing developed by Francine Shapiro, PhD in the late 1980′s. EMDR is an eight-phase treatment which comprehensively identifies and addresses experiences that have overwhelmed the brain’s natural resilience or coping capacity, and have thereby generated traumatic symptoms and/or harmful coping strategies. Through EMDR therapy, patients are able to reprocess traumatic information until it is no longer psychologically disruptive.”