Re:Dr. Shapiro where are you?

Thank you for your interest. I'm currently in the middle of some non-negotiable publishing deadlines and so cannot really participate. Next year I will be on an extended sabbatical and hope to return the following year. I've appended to the bottom of this message a few paragraphs that pinpoint my present thinking and what I hope to continue over the next year. I hope everyone interested will be patient.

In the meanwhile, I'm very grateful to Dr Paulsen Inobe for all her efforts. Thanks also to Dr. O'Brien for his time and support.

I hope that those who are able will contine their EMDR education not only on this forum but through the continuing education sponsored by the EMDR International Association (http://www.emdria. org). For those interested in participating in a global commitment to alleviating suffering, please look into the EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs (http://www.emdrhap.org).

Wishing you a joyous holiday season and new year.

Individuals suffering from traumatic events who participated in numerous controlled PTSD studies have attained rapid improvements through EMDR, bringing them into the "normal" range on a wide variety of measures. Indicators of self-efficacy and well-being have increased while anxiety and depression have declined. These same indicators are apparent in general clinical practice and appear to support the theory that the processing of similarly dysfunctionally stored childhood experiences allows the client to become fully and comprehensively an adult. That is, it appears that most dysfunctional characteristics displayed across the full spectrum of psychological disorders may be viewed as being grounded in experiential contributors. Clearly the interplay of genetic predisposition, circumstances compromising resiliency such as fatigue, substance abuse, etc. all play a part in the full clinical picture. It is assumed that some disorders, such as certain forms of depression, may be caused purely by organic deficits and would not be appropriate candidates for EMDR treatment. But clinical experience indicates that many pathologies, including certain forms of depression, are forged by earlier experiences that contain affects of "helplessness," "hopelessness," and the full spectrum of affects that comprise a sense of self-denegration and lack of efficacy. While by no means a panacea, the specific role of EMDR is to help metabolize the experiential contributors to present dysfunction, which may range from easily identified critical incidents such as rapes and assaults, through the more innocuous- seeming negative interactions with family, peers, teachers, strangers, etc.that have left a lasting negative effect.

For many of our clients it appears that simply processing these earlier experiences allows the appropriate cognitive and emotional connections to be made and adaptive behaviors spontaneously emerge along with the insights and positive self-concepts. However, for those clients who have been badly neglected and abused in childhood, it is also important to identify what developmental windows might have closed before important infrastructures were set in place. Did the traumatized child learn object constancy, or will it need to be taught during therapy? What will the clinician need to model for the client? What experiences will need to be engendered to allow the needed introjects and patterns to emerge? Once these positive interactions are forged within the therapeutic relationship, they too become stored in memory, and can be enhanced through the EMDR procedures.

As therapists we must be careful to view our clients as complex beings functioning on all levels of sensing, thinking, feeling, acting, and believing. And we must not be satisfied with simply removing overt suffering. Our clients deserve more than that. They deserve the ability to love, to bond, to excel and, if they choose, to find the desire to serve others. They deserve all the attributes that Maslow (1970) described as self-actualization. To that end, we use a standard three-pronged EMDR protocol to afford all clients a comprehensive treatment of past, present and future. It is hoped that no one is considered expendable

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