EMDR is a therapeutic technique that helps people re-look at past events they have experienced as overwhelming. Whether the event was an accident, an assault or trauma in a relationship, EMDR can help reprocess the troubling feelings and relieve their impact.

EMDR uses a specific, structured protocol and bilateral stimulation. Bilateral stimulation (alternating stimulation from one side of the body to the other) is created by either having the client's eyes track the side to side, back and forth finger motion of the therapist, by hearing alternating beeps from headphones or feeling alternating beeps from holding hand sensors.

The goal of EMDR is to facilitate the generative process of new, more positive beliefs and associations about oneself and the traumatic material. It is as if the EMDR process helps "unfreeze" old memories and affects. These memories can then be looked at in the light of day and be re-evaluated for what they are, and not what they felt like originally when they were in full play.

EMDR employs the notion of "resource installation." If it is the therapist's judgment that a client does not yet have the strength to face the trauma, time is given to help bolster the client's internal ability to withstand re-examining the old trauma. This insures the client will not be overwhelmed again.

EMDR is also used to overcome performance anxiety and enhance your effectiveness in music, art, athletics, and other types of work that have high performance demands.

Francine Shapiro invented EMDR in the early 1990s. She was walking in the park one day feeling burdened. She sat down on a park bench to look at the nearby pigeons. As her eyes flickered back and forth following the quick moves of the pigeons, she noticed she felt better from the motion of her eyes going back and forth. Fascinated at this seemingly random discovery, she switched her Ph. D. work from English literature and the study of Thomas Hardy to psychology, to explore and expand on her discovery.

Since the early nineties EMDR has evolved from a method of treating primarily trauma to treating many other conditions, including: performance anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, anxiety and depression.

EMDR treatment can be a short-term treatment of 5-10 sessions for specific traumas, or it can be used adjunctively in longer term treatment.

I am certified as an EMDR practitioner