What is EMDR?

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) was introduced by Francine Shapiro in 1989, and while we still do not understand exactly how it works, we know through numerous studies that it does work. EMDR exposes you to the memory of the trauma and pairs that memory with a feeling and a negative belief developed by the trauma. While you hold all of these things in mind, you will have some sort of bilateral stimulation to focus on as well which will over time desensitize the memory. The bilateral stimulation can take many forms such as following the therapists fingers going back and forth with your eyes, listening to sounds in either ear, or feeling vibration going between both hands.

EMDR is very different from other types of therapy that rely on conversations with a therapist. Unlike these traditional therapies, EMDR’s power lies in re-experiencing the memory with the bilateral stimulation. This is sufficient to rewire the brain and subsequently the memory itself and problems that it create will dissolve spontaneously.

Memory

Normally the brain is able to encode sensory data from our daily life and process the data in the hippocampus where it gets consolidated and stored as normal memory with a beginning, middle, and end. Traumatic experiences overload the brain and this process becomes interrupted. When supports are not in place and the experience does not get processed, it becomes stored as sensory memory. Sensory memory is not like normal episodic memory that gets processed in the hippocampus. An example of sensory memory is how to use a hammer. Our body remembers how to move at the elbow, not the shoulder, how to hit the nail firmly, but not too hard, etc. It is stored differently in the brain than when you remember walking around your neighborhood at 10 years old. The problem with traumatic memory being processed as sensory memory is how vivid it becomes. It causes us to relive the trauma, and anything that was present during the trauma can trigger it, whether you remember there was a smell or sound at that time or not, the body never forgets. EMDR can assist the mind in reconsolidating that improperly stored sensory data into episodic normal memory where it can be reprocessed and disempowered.

how does eMDR work?

Exactly how EMDR is still being investigated, but it seems that eye movement is able to stimulate some part of the brain that can reprocess the memory. When the body becomes overwhelmed by stress, the normal process of memory creation is impaired. Instead of making a normal memory that has a beginning, middle, and end, traumatic memories are fragmented and often send people into a “flashback” where to varying degrees the memory is relived rather than remembered. EMDR seems to change the traumatic memory into a normal memory.

One idea is that the eye movements mimic REM sleep, which is the stage of sleep where memory is formed. This could help take the fragments of memory and consolidate a full memory that could be processed. It is important to note that EMDR can be done effectively with bilateral stimulation of any kind, it is not necessary that it be eye movements. Some believe that EMDR works by accessing the memory but using more energy on the visual part of the brain than the memory itself. This could make the memory less powerful. Over time that memory would be “rewritten” and less vivid. Similar to this, EMDR could be another form of exposure therapy, which exposes you to the memory and from seeing it so many times, allow it to lose power naturally. Whatever the real reason is, EMDR is an effective way to convert traumatic fragmented memory into normal episodic processed memory.

more information

Many people have difficulty remember traumatic events. This is typical. Even if the memory is old and specifics can hardly be remembered, EMDR will work. This is because EMDR works with the relationship to the memory, rather than the memory itself. How your brain represents the past to you today is all that matters. Likewise, you do not need to process every traumatic memory. For example, if you have trauma surrounding abandonment, you do not need to process every abandonment trauma.

Though EMDR will help you overcome trauma, the following days may be difficult as the memory is being reprocessed. It is not uncommon to have trouble sleeping, experience nightmares, or have recurring thoughts about the trauma. This is a temporary state that will give way to a more peaceful existence.