I don't know which therapy, exactly, you undertook, but you should know several things. 1) EMDR is the original eye movement therapy, and Dr. Shapiro developed a very careful protocol to make sure that its use is safe and effective. 2) I don't know about your therapist or how he or she was trained, but some of the copycat eye therapies have used non-licensed non-mental health professionals as trainees, who could be expected to be ill prepared to use a powerful and complicated procedure with some of the more complex conditions that are associated with trauma. 3) With any therapy that involves eye movements (I mean, rapid side to side movements, usually), there is a risk that if the correct protocol is not used, the results can be very uncomfortable for the client. It is not enough for the therapist to use eye movements to open up the trauma, there has to also be a complex protocol used to set up the procedure responsibly, and to close it down safely, not to mention the complexities of correctly targeting the issues. Anyone who has trauma or other significant issues that they wish to address should 1) use a clinician who has been trained via an EMDR Institute approved program, because that is the only way you can know what procedure will be used, and 2) interview the clinician to be sure that they are experienced with the kind of issues you wish to address in therapy. I wish you well in your voyage of discovery.
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