Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
This chapter illustrates similarities in EMDR and memory reconsolidation, in Unlocking the emotional brain: Memory reconsolidation and the psychotherapy of transformational change.
About the Chapter
“This chapter studies a published, five-session case of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) that produced transformational change, eliminating long-term symptoms of panic attacks, guilt, and self-condemnation following a natural disaster trauma: In a tornado catastrophe 10 years before, the female client survived but her husband died. Our commentaries show how the therapeutic reconsolidation process (TRP) was fulfilled by EMDR methodology, supporting our general claim that fulfillment of the memory reconsolidation process of unlearning is always the immediate precursor and direct cause of transformational therapeutic change. EMDR was developed in the late 1980s by psychologist Francine Shapiro for the treatment of post-traumatic symptoms, and is now applied more broadly. EMDR’s conceptual model, Adaptive Information Processing, views the brain’s memory systems as seeking adaptive mental health, but susceptible to becoming stuck on distress-laden, unprocessed memory formed in negative experiences. The target of change in EMDR is that memory material underlying and generating the presenting symptoms, which makes EMDR deeply kindred with the TRP framework. To accomplish the accessing and transformational change of those memory contents, EMDR utilizes dual focus, in which the client’s attention focuses on both the internally experienced, problematic memory material and an external, bilateral oscillation of perceptual attention.”
—Description from publisher
Chapter Access
Purchase/Subscription Required
Ecker, B., Ticic, R., & Hulley, L. (2024). Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). In B. Ecker, R. Ticic, & L. Hulley (Eds.), Unlocking the emotional brain: Memory reconsolidation and the psychotherapy of transformational change. New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003231431
eBook ISBN: 9781003231431
About the Book
“This highly influential volume, now in a much-expanded second edition, delivers major advances for psychotherapy, all empirically grounded in memory reconsolidation neuroscience. A great increase of therapeutic effectiveness can be gained, thanks to a clear map of the brain’s innate core process of transformational change—a process that does not require use of any particular system or techniques and is therefore remarkably versatile.
Twenty-six case examples show the decisive ending of a vast range of major symptoms, including depression, anxiety, panic, shame, self-devaluing, anger, perfectionism, alcohol abuse, sexual aversion, compulsive eating and obesity, paralyzed self-expression, and teen ADHD—all transformed through deeply resolving underlying disturbances such as complex trauma, lifelong oppression by systemic racism and homophobia, childhood sexual molestation, parental narcissistic domination, violent assault trauma, natural disaster trauma, and childhood traumatic aloneness and neglect.
This is a transdiagnostic, transtheoretical, lucid understanding of therapeutic action, based, for the first time in the history of the psychotherapy field, on rigorous empirical knowledge of an internal mechanism of change, and it achieves a fundamental unification of the confusingly fragmented psychotherapy field: diverse systems no longer seem to belong to different worlds, because they now form a wonderful repertoire of options for facilitating the same core process of transformational change, as shown in case examples from AEDP, Coherence Therapy, EFT, EMDR, IFS, IPNB, ISTDP, psychedelic-assisted therapy, and SE.
It’s now clear why therapy systems that differ strikingly in technique and theory can produce the same quality of liberating change. Practitioners who value deep connection with their clients are richly rewarded by the experiential depth that this core process accesses, where no awareness had previously reached, whether sessions are done in person or via online video. It is an embarrassment of riches, because in addition we gain the decisive resolution of several longstanding, polarizing debates regarding the nature of symptom production, the prevalence of attachment issues, the operation of traumatic memory, the functions of the client-therapist relationship, the role of emotional arousal in the process of change, and the relative importance of specific versus non-specific factors.”
—Description from publisher
Date
April 21, 2024
Creator(s)
Bruce Ecker, Robin Ticic, Laurel Hulley
Practice & Methods
AIP, Efficacy, Neurobiology
Extent
10 pages
Publisher
Routledge
APA Citation
Ecker, B., Ticic, R., & Hulley, L. (2024). Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). In B. Ecker, R. Ticic, & L. Hulley (Eds.), Unlocking the emotional brain: Memory reconsolidation and the psychotherapy of transformational change. New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003231431
Audience
EMDR Therapists, Other Mental Health Professionals
Language
English
Content Type
Chapter
Access Type
External Resource
