EMDR FORUM ARCHIVE, 2000
Re:NLP
Professor · 04/12/03 at 6:02 PM ET
The post was about the issue of professional credit for the visual tracking of horizontal finger-movements as a psychotherapy technique. Contemporary innovators have based their contributions on their predecessors and seem to have given appropriate citations when they are conscious of them. Nicosia's (1994) limited and unpublished study and a letter (1995) to a dissociation journal do not prove that components of EMDR are not "hypnosis." Physiological measurements and phenomena of hypnotic states are much more multifaceted, contradictory, and controversial than his conclusion. EMDR may not intend to be hypnosis, however, components that include focused attention, repetitive tasks, intense experiences, directed awareness, authoritative instructions, therapeutic relationships, memory associations, unique stimuli, rhythmic stimuli, pre-conditioned stimuli, etc., can elicit hypnotic responses. Though the primary goal of bilateral stimulation seems to be a re-association of traumatic material (that can be "entrancing") with external stimuli and normal functioning (alertness). This method is also a part of many psychotherapists’ training; to focus overwhelmed patients on immediate stimuli to ground and calm them with present awareness that alleviates traumatic memories. Who should get credit for the above “grounding” technique? This response is not to assert that EMDR “is” hypnosis. It is in part to point out that criticisms of claims of contributions to the psychotherapy field are best viewed from a larger perspective. For example, eye-movement techniques appear in the hypnosis literature and can be traced back many decades. Opinions, discussions, and research are necessary to validate the effective approaches. Hopefully the issues do not force professionals into defensive, simplistic, polarized, and extreme claims. Finger tracking may elicit a variety of innate or conditioned psychological and physiological reactions. Practitioners and patients are best alerted to the variety of possible responses. For example, eye-movements, tapping, and clicks (bi-lateral stimuli) may elicit external awareness and normal alertness; or they may trigger a variety of hypnotic, traumatic, dissociative, or other psychological states. It is also probable that bilateral stimuli may become “hypnotic triggers” or conditioned stimuli (depending on the learning theory applied) as a result of EMDR training. EMDR seems to provide a variety of effective treatment techniques in a coherent and efficient approach. However, sometimes overly zealous claims, inflexible assertions, and fear of critiques can cause its weaknesses to become vulnerabilities that are exacerbated instead of acknowledged, understood, and improved.
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