EMDR Forum Archive, 1999
Re: Lying--An common EMDR problem?
Sandra Paulsen, Ph.D. · 4/29/00 at 3:39 pm ET
I appreciate the above post, which was largely well-reasoned, and am responding only to a couple of distortions that I detect: You say there is no evidence for the assumptions that a trauma causes a disturbance in some sort of information processing system which bilateral stimulation can correct. There are two parts to this - the first is that trauma causes disturbances in information processing. I refer you to David Baldwin's Trauma Pages, at www.trauma-pages.com. There readers can find the complete articles by some of the worlds leading researchers in the biological effects of trauma on the brain. For example, Bessel van der Kolk's classic The Body Keeps the Score is a summary of a wide number of scientific findings from animal experimental studies and human correlational studies that find significant neurochemical, neuroendocrine, and other findings of profound biological sequelae from trauma, acute and chronic. The second part is whether bilateral stimulation can correct the brain-sequelae of trauma. In addition to the clinical EMDR studies which Brian prefers to discount, there are a couple of other sources of data I want to mention. One is Bessel van der Kolk's 6 PET scans of patient brains before and after EMDR trauma processing. He found significant results and is very excited about the implications. Although a skeptic for years, Bessel is convinced that something important is happening in EMDR and other body-based therapies that open up and process through traumatic material held locked in the body, which is "keeping the score" on past trauma. I think Bessel has published these findings, but I don't have the reference at hand. Perhaps someone else reading this does. Another example, and this one isn't published yet, I learned of when I spoke over lunch with an excited Ian Wickamestra, Ph.D., (spelling?), old-time behaviorist, long time researcher, now at Stanford Medical School. He also, by the way, was very skeptical of EMDR for many years, and reportedly dismissed it as a form of hypnosis, which he'd also researched. He customarily does EEG studies before and after treatment, and a doctoral student of his was researching EMDR. He was very surprised at the EEG results that he obtained. He pointed excitedly at the EEG printout in his hand at lunch saying, "and this is where her mind just opened up!" He went on to say the EEG pattern was quite extraordinary, not what you'd expect to see in hypnosis or a conventional therapy. Finally, Brian, it is an overt distortion of what I do and what I said that I do to say that I keep attempting to find ways to find traumatic expeiences to work on in session. What I said was that I do a trauma history as part of my standard comprehensive intake. I further said that I conduct EMDR targeting that which is appropriate to target given the client's presenting complaints. It may or may not be trauma. If you, Brian, are suggesting that because there are some bad therapists out there who don't have an appropriate therapeutic stance therefore we should all run scared and not address trauma when it is appropriate, then you are making the mistake of false negatives and conducting as bad a disservice to clients as those who make false positives regarding trauma. A client history that doesn't assess for trauma with alot of other things is leaving a huge gaping hole. Some therapists do indeed make that kind of systematic error and I sincerely hope you aren't one of them. Good therapists avoid systematic false negatives and false positives whenever they can, a high standard indeed.
Replies:
|
| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |
Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.
