It was about 10 years ago when I first heard, in passing, of a new therapy for psychological trauma which sounded more than a little strange. As far as I could understand, the main principles were that you waggled your fingers in front of your client’s face whilst they thought of their traumatic experiences, and somehow, their trauma no longer felt so traumatic. You can understand why I was a little cynical! Luckily, I didn’t allow this cynicism to get the better of me and I began to look into it. Eventually I trained in it myself.
‘Bilateral Stimulation’
The name of this therapy? Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, or ‘EMDR’ for short (memorable name, eh?!!). Developed by Dr Francine Shapiro in the 1980s, EMDR has taken off in the therapy world as something of a phenomenon with hundreds of thousands of therapists being trained worldwide. So, what’s it all about? Well, as per my initial insight into EMDR, the therapist does (sort of) “waggle” their fingers in front of their client whilst the client recalls their trauma. Or more precisely, the therapist skillfully guides the client through the memories, emotions, thoughts and sensations associated with their traumatic experience whilst systematically moving their fingers from left to right for the client to track with their eyes. Why would they do this strange thing? Well, the principle behind this is called ‘bilateral stimulation’ – the act of visually tracking the therapist’s finger causes the right and left sides of the brain to be alternately stimulated. (This is the ‘Eye Movement’ bit in the name EMDR – although bilateral brain stimulation can also be created other ways e.g. with hand taps or buzzers). This bilateral stimulation is thought to help in the processing of psychological trauma (and other emotional issues).
