Re: how does the therapist know when to stop waving hand during emdr?

Your questions are good ones and are very complex to answer. I am going to assume you are not a mental health professional, and that your interest is potentially from the other side of the waving hand.

Basically, the question of how long the bilateral stimulation (can be eye movements, can be auditory or tapping) should continue is one that is addressed in Level I training, which takes almost two and a half days. If there is a short answer, it is that the length of sets is variable, and the therapist determines it in part by client preference and in part by the therapist observes happening in the EMDR. We try to get to the natural end of an emotional phrase rather than stopping in the middle, but it isn't always that easy to tell and clients vary considerably.

In terms of how we tell whether EMDR is effective, there are two immediate ways we note changes during an EMDR session and at the follow up session. We ask the client to bring to mind the problematic memory or situation, then ask the client to rate 1)how disturbing the memory/situation is and 2) how true (in their gut, not their head) a desired self-statement is. Usually, the disturbance goes down, and the desired self-statement feels more true as processing goes on. In the overall scheme of things, we know EMDR is effective if the person's overall functioning, life satisfaction, self-esteem, relationships (or whatever the presenting issues were) are improving over the course of treatment. Depending on the issue, this may be brief therapy or extensive.

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