EMDR is a therapy approach designed to work with distressing or traumatic memories.
Many psychological problems are the result of distressing life experiences that have not been stored properly in memory. These memories are blocked and unprocessed. Our other memories go through wear and tear. For example, you may notice how your memory about a random event may differ from someone else who was there. You may each recollect different aspects of the incident and there may be parts that one of you may have forgotten. Normal memories are stored in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. You can think of the hippocampus as a sort of librarian which catalogues (processes) events and stores them in the right place. The problem with our traumatic memories is that they are almost “frozen in time”. They do not go through the “wear and tear” that other memories do, and when we are triggered and the memory appears it can feel hugely traumatic, almost as though you are back there. These memories are stored in a raw, unprocessed form. I often refer to traumatic memories as being snapshots. Let’s take as an example someone who was in a terrible car accident where they thought they were going to die, yet they survived. Others may comment and say it’s over and things worked out okay, yet there remains that snapshot, that is, that small timeframe in which you believed you would die. Therein lies the trauma. These traumatic memories may need some help to become processed, and EMDR is one way to do this.
Aside from single episode traumatic experiences there is more complex trauma. We could speak of developmental trauma where a person, throughout childhood, may be subjected to ongoing traumatic events, such as sexual abuse by a family member. EMDR is also one way to address, work through and process this trauma.
What is EMDR? It is bilateral movement of the eyes or ears or bilateral tactile sensation (for example tapping) applied to knees or hands. You will be asked about the worse moment of a distressing memory, and you will identify thoughts, emotions and body sensations related to that memory. You then think about these aspects along with the image while the bilateral stimulation occurs. You will allow your mind to go along with whatever comes up for you and the process is repeated until the memory causes less distress.
Bilateral stimulation applied in this way has been found to facilitate memory processing. The literature provides evidence to suggest that EMDR is an effective treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).