EMDR-more than meets the &lllaos;EYES&lllaos;

I have been studying different aspects of Psychology and Counseling for over 20 years. I have had to work with PTSD, and victims of sexual abuse for that period. My first encounter was as a Special Education Teacher, now as a LPC. My favorite reading material seems to be Counseling Techniques. I had read a number of articles and postings related to EMDR for about 1 year now. Most of the material seems to focus on the eye movements. There is always a great deal of skepticism if something new works better than the "old established ways." In reading these postings most of the discussion appears to be focused on the how and why the eyes movement works.

I recently purchased a couple of books on EMDR. One was a paperback on a therapist's personal experiences. Kind of a waste of money for me. The other was Francine Shapiro's large hard cover on the how to and whys of EMDR. This book is an excellent resource. The most interesting aspect of reading and re-reading this book is that I feel that the eye movements (although they may in deed work their magic) are only a small part of a very well thought out and articulated counseling process. I use a good amount of Cognitve Behavioral Therapy. I use what I need to for each individual client. EMDR seems to be a type of CBT. Each part of the process has been researched in its own right and makes sense when you put it all together.

I have done research on Hypnotherapy and self-esteem issues and read a good deal on NLP. I believed both of these were methods that got at difficulties with the way the brain processes and stores information and how this often negatively affects self-esteem and causes people to become really stuck in negative thought/behavior/emotion patterns. You can many times get at the parts and not fix the whole. To me, EMDR makes so much more sense at getting at these problems. I am finishing up a Ph.D. in counseling. I think It might be very interesting to research memory storage and negative self-image and use EMDR to counter this.

Thanks again to Francine Shapiro.

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