About Us

A Type of Psychotherapy
EMDR is a type of psychotherapy.  It was developed in 1987 (for a more in-depth explanation of its origins and theories, see http://EMDRIA.org/), and first came to be respected as a highly effective treatment for trauma survivors.

Later, therapists found EMDR to be effective with all but a few types of issues.  (EMDR is not effective with issues whose causes are physical or chemical.)

The Theory Underlying EMDR
EMDR is based on a theory (Adaptive Information Processing, or AIP) that a person’s current problems with their feelings and their behavior are caused by hurtful experiences in their past that were never fully resolved (worked through and stored in long-term memory as just something that happened, rather than as something disturbing).  Instead, the feelings and thoughts we have during the unresolved experience become filters through which we view the world.  For example, a young boy being told he is a lot of trouble takes that belief into his adult life, despite later experiences where he realizes intellectually that he isn’t a lot of trouble.  He can know what is true, yet the feeling that he is a lot of trouble persists and affects his behavior.

Adaptive Information Processing Theory
Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) theory, a learning theory, is the theory that proposes a hypothesis about how EMDR Therapy works, in general.

AIP hypothesizes that the brain has an information processing system that processes memories and integrates them into each person’s existing network of memories, a state termed “adaptive resolution.”  When a person’s experience is sufficiently traumatic, however, the information processing system becomes overwhelmed.  Memories are not adequately processed, but are left stored in the nervous system in their original form, which may be experienced as the flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive thoughts of PTSD, or as a feeling of being inadequate, or as a feeling of generalized anxiety, or in many other ways.  During EMDR, the client re-accesses the traumatic memory and the information processing system is stimulated so that the experience is assimilated into the person’s memory networks (Oren & Solomon, 2012; Shapiro & Forrest, 2004; Solomon & Shapiro, 2008). (Oren & Solomon, 2012; Shapiro & Forrest, 2004, 1997; Solomon & Shapiro, 2008).

A Natural Physiological Process
According to the EMDR International Association (http://emdria.org/), no one knows how EMDR works, but it seems to re-start a natural physiological process in a person’s brain, similar to the process that happens during the REM phase of sleep.

During EMDR, you bring troubling memories out of storage and into your current consciousness, and at the same time, you experience some type of alternating bilateral stimulation.  This bilateral stimulation could be moving your eyes back and forth while following a therapist’s fingers, a light bar, or a wand…or it could be holding pulsars in your palms that buzz in alternate hands…or it could be the therapist tapping your knees alternately…or it could be hearing alternating sounds through headphones.

During the processing that EMDR initiates, the emotional disturbance associated with a memory is reduced and the memory becomes organized into a story about something that happened to us, but is no longer disturbing us or negatively affecting our current life.  The Adaptive Information Processing theory (Adaptive Information Processing) hypothesizes that our brains naturally process disturbing events, but when the disturbance is more than our system can handle, because we are too young, or because the event is too overwhelming, the disturbing event is left in our brain unprocessed.  The feelings and beliefs we have as a result of these unprocessed disturbing events are the reason for our difficulties in our present life.

There are a number of hypotheses about how EMDR accomplishes this adaptive information processing.  It is also possible that more than one of the hypothesized mechanisms work together to produce the healing effects of EMDR.

One Hypothesis:  EMDR is Similar to the Rapid Eye Movement Stage of Sleep
During the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep, our eyes spontaneously move back and forth and our brain processes and organizes events of our lives.  One theory of how EMDR works is that it is an artificially induced REM experience.

Another Hypothesis:  The Eye Movements Help Both Sides of the Brain to Work Together Better
The bilateral eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) may help the left and right sides of the brain to synchronize better.

Another Hypothesis:  The Eye Movements Disrupt the Way Our Brains Usually Manage Memories
One idea is that the eye movements of EMDR interrupt the physiological response our brain usually has to a traumatic memory, and allows the memory to be processed in a different, healing, way.

Another Hypothesis:  The Eye Movements Provide Distraction
The eye movements of EMDR may distract the client enough that the usual anxiety attached to remembering a traumatic event is reduced, allowing the client to process the memory in a healing way.

Another Hypothesis: Memory Reconsolidation
Bruce Ecker and Laurel Hully (who wrote a book called “Unlocking the Emotional Brain:  Eliminating Symptoms at Their Roots Using Memory Reconsolidation”) propose the memory reconsolidation theory.

Memory reconsolidation is a type of neuroplasticity where, under the right conditions, a memory is brought out from where it is stored, challenged in just the right way with new learning, and the new learning deletes the old learning by overwriting it.  EMDR, as well as some other types of therapies, sets up these conditions and creates transformational change.

The discovery that our brains are capable of this transformation makes it possible to eliminate symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, low self esteem, fear, flashbacks, and anger, rather than just managing them.  For many years, psychotherapists believed that memories that were deeply embedded in our brains because of the strong emotion attached to them, could not be changed, but could only be challenged with new information.  Clients had to learn to ignore the old learning and put their attention on the new learning.  With memory reconsolidation, the disturbing material is permanently changed.  EMDR Therapy is one of only 14 therapies that create transformational change in the brain, rather than counteractive change. (Ecker, Ticic, and Hulley, p. 5)

During EMDR Therapy, I will ask you to think of the traumatic event you want to process, and move your eyes back and forth (or experience some other form of bilateral stimulation).  The eye movements interrupt your brain’s usual ways of processing a memory and allow for a therapeutic re-processing of the memory that reduces the painful emotions associated with the memory, and replaces the negative beliefs you came to as a result of the experience with positive beliefs.  This “re-processing” results in less emotional pain, more confidence, and a stronger, more unified sense of self.

EMDR has been used by therapists for significant positive change in a wide variety of symptoms.  People experiencing nearly every mental health challenge can benefit from EMDR.  The broad exceptions are conditions with organic or chemical causes.