EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980's. Since then, a vast number of research studies have shown that EMDR is an effective form of treatment for trauma and other adverse experiences.
Traumatic or adverse unresolved past experiences sit in different parts of our brain and body. They involve our rational brain (the frontal cortex), our emotional brain (the limbic system), our instinctual brain (the reptilian brain), and other parts of the body such as the digestive system, and our limbs.
EMDR combines the accessing and processing of traumatic memories and adverse experiences with some form of bilateral stimulation (e.g., rapid eye movement). This allows for a more direct access to both the left and the right hemispheres of the brain where the adverse experiences have been stored in different modalities. As a result, the emotional blocks present in our system are reprocessed and transformed. Once those blocks are removed, the natural human trajectory toward healing happens.
