Re: edmr in traumatized young children

I'd direct you to the work of Sandra Wilson, PhD & Bob Tinker,PhD, who have published in this area, as well as the books of Joan Lovett, MD and another by Ricky Greenwald, PhD. Special procedures are necessary in using EMDR with kids because of their more limited attention and concentration, understanding, and the challenges of clear communication about fearful subjects.

In spite of the challenges, working with children in EMDR is exceptionally rewarding because of the malleability of their young brains. EMDR proceeds even more rapidly with kids, in many cases. Dr. Greenwald has defined a number of creative approaches to working with very young children, including the use of puppets and other devices to engage them successfully in the EMDR procedure.

In my own work with children, I have seen trauma symptoms of years duration resolved in very brief treatment. One example, a little girl of 6 hit by a car at 4 had had phobic avoidance of cars and streets, and nightmares since the accident. After two 15 minute EMDR sessions (much shorter than for adults), which were not transparently clear what exactly was being processed, when I asked her to recall the truck that hit her and how she felt now, she smiled ear to ear and said, "piece of cake". Her symptoms completely remitted from this point forward. Not all children are this readily treated but the point is that kids have had less time to ossify their personalities, defenses, and pathologies so treatment proceeds quite readily.

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