Re:Comments on Andrade et al., and Kavanagh et al.

You wrote:

"However, by virtue of limiting activation of the network, it prevents the network from changing because (1) the theory assumes that a network must be activated in order to be changed, and (2) distraction from the fear stimulus prevents people from attending to the fact that feared consequences do not occur (i.e., detract from processing the disconfirming evidence)."

Thanks for the explanation surrounding this quote, it's the first time I heard anything like it and it was immensely helpful.

Question, not to you specifically, but aren't eye movements supposed to activate those networks, not just distract or desensitize? Dr. Paulsen repeatedly talks about clients getting stuck in high states of arousal, presumably from the emdr/em's... So I am real unclear right now on whether eye movements are conjectured to reduce affect, associate affect, process affect or WHAT?

In my experience, em's heighten emotion and recall (confabulated or actual). If they do this, then they aren't a distraction, right? And then any desensitization observed would be the result of that heightened arousal integrated with the "new information" of being in the here and now of therapy. If I'm understanding the above post... What am I missing? Desensitizing or arousing, which are em's supposed to be?

Thanks!

Replies:

Re:Comments on Andrade et al., and Kavanagh et al., by Cahill, 11/07/02 Re:Comments on Andrade et al., and Kavanagh et al., by client, 11/07/02

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