This public awareness film highlights just a few stories of how EMDR therapy has helped millions of people of all ages and backgrounds relieve many types of psychological stress. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma.

In the video:

• DaLene Forester Thacker, PhD, EMDR Therapist
• Six EMDR therapy patients

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Transcript

[Music]

0:07
[Patient 1]
I handled traumatic events for many, many years.

[Patient 2]
For so many years, I had suppressed emotions and then shared those very candidly.

[Patient 3]
Um I’ve lost a lot of people, people have died. Everybody pretty much has gone.

[Patient 4]
A fight ensued where they used material to wrap around my neck to choke me, I was struck in the head multiple times.

[Patient 5]
Well, you don’t want to tell everybody that story because not a lot of people will understand.

[Patient 6]
I’d like to be able to have the relationship now that I couldn’t have then.

[Forester Thacker]
Because you want to be an adult with your mom.

0:37
[Forester Thacker]
Our brain is a very natural healing mechanism very much like the rest of our body we want to heal.

[Patient 5]
When you have depression or any kind of ailment like PTSD you don’t know it’s ever going to get better or if you’re going to have to resort to medication.

[Patient 1]
I was ready to give it all up.

0:55
[Forester Thacker]
EMDR psychotherapy is one of the five recommended treatments for trauma by the American Psychiatric Association.

[Patient 1]
The firefighter next and we got hit and killed, the other civilian got hit and hurt, the survivor’s guilt that came with that was awful.

1:10
[Forester Thacker]
And yet it’s not just for trauma. EMDR psychotherapy is tremendously helpful for adverse life experiences.

[Patient 3]
I’m laying in bed and I’m thinking I can’t do this, there’s no way, I’m not prepared, I don’t look right.

[Patient 2]
It’s very hard to stand up and tell somebody how you really feel.

[Patient 1]
When I was first exposed to it and sat one-on-one with my clinician, I thought he was silly.

[Patient 5]
He said you have an image of this person now and I said yes I have an image of this woman, I tried to hold on to that image during the EMDR episode. To me it was as if something holding a picture of the person and pulling it away into the dark corner of the room. Tears started to stream down my face is he said what’s wrong and I said I just this is amazing.

1:53
[Patient 6]
I felt that sense of release, of freedom.

[Patient 1]
It just gave me the freedom to really express myself

[Patient 2]
Put a kiddy up in my step.

2:04
[Patient 3]
And I told myself no this is not who you are you know you’re stronger, you know you have it in you.

2:10
[Patient 1]
Something changed the first time I had EMDR and if I could put one word to it, it would be hope.

2:15
[Patient 5]
My first session was very, very powerful.

[Patient 1]
I thought it was magic at first.

2:20
[Forester Thacker]
EMDR psychotherapy is more akin to what happens during REM sleep when you go into sleep and your brain kind of sorts things through and lets go of stuff that it doesn’t need. It’s a very similar mechanism. EMDR can help us go back to when the
route was laid down for a negative belief system.

[Patient 2]
I want to do EMDR again.

[Patient 4]
If you can get out of this career 25 or 30 years healthy that’s a victory on its own.

[Forester Thacker]
I’ve heard so many stories of growth and healing.

[Patient 5]
I just kind of stepped out on the porch and I went, wow, the sky was bluer.

[Patient 3]
I don’t think I’ll ever be a hundred percent, but I’ve definitely come so far.

3:00
[Forester Thacker]
We really give people their lives back as therapists and that’s profoundly important to me.
This public awareness film highlights just a few stories of how EMDR therapy has helped millions of people of all ages and backgrounds relieve many types of psychological stress. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma.

In the video:
• DaLene Forester Thacker, PhD, EMDR Therapist
• Six EMDR therapy patients

Transcript

[Music]

0:07
[Patient 1]
I handled traumatic events for many, many years.

[Patient 2]
For so many years, I had suppressed emotions and then shared those very candidly.

[Patient 3]
Um I’ve lost a lot of people, people have died. Everybody pretty much has gone.

[Patient 4]
A fight ensued where they used material to wrap around my neck to choke me, I was struck in the head multiple times.

[Patient 5]
Well, you don’t want to tell everybody that story because not a lot of people will understand.

[Patient 6]
I’d like to be able to have the relationship now that I couldn’t have then.

[Forester Thacker]
Because you want to be an adult with your mom.

0:37
[Forester Thacker]
Our brain is a very natural healing mechanism very much like the rest of our body we want to heal.

[Patient 5]
When you have depression or any kind of ailment like PTSD you don’t know it’s ever going to get better or if you’re going to have to resort to medication.

[Patient 1]
I was ready to give it all up.

0:55
[Forester Thacker]
EMDR psychotherapy is one of the five recommended treatments for trauma by the American Psychiatric Association.

[Patient 1]
The firefighter next and we got hit and killed, the other civilian got hit and hurt, the survivor’s guilt that came with that was awful.

1:10
[Forester Thacker]
And yet it’s not just for trauma. EMDR psychotherapy is tremendously helpful for adverse life experiences.

[Patient 3]
I’m laying in bed and I’m thinking I can’t do this, there’s no way, I’m not prepared, I don’t look right.

[Patient 2]
It’s very hard to stand up and tell somebody how you really feel.

[Patient 1]
When I was first exposed to it and sat one-on-one with my clinician, I thought he was silly.

[Patient 5]
He said you have an image of this person now and I said yes I have an image of this woman, I tried to hold on to that image during the EMDR episode. To me it was as if something holding a picture of the person and pulling it away into the dark corner of the room. Tears started to stream down my face is he said what’s wrong and I said I just this is amazing.

1:53
[Patient 6]
I felt that sense of release, of freedom.

[Patient 1]
It just gave me the freedom to really express myself

[Patient 2]
Put a kiddy up in my step.

2:04
[Patient 3]
And I told myself no this is not who you are you know you’re stronger, you know you have it in you.

2:10
[Patient 1]
Something changed the first time I had EMDR and if I could put one word to it, it would be hope.

2:15
[Patient 5]
My first session was very, very powerful.

[Patient 1]
I thought it was magic at first.

2:20
[Forester Thacker]
EMDR psychotherapy is more akin to what happens during REM sleep when you go into sleep and your brain kind of sorts things through and lets go of stuff that it doesn’t need. It’s a very similar mechanism. EMDR can help us go back to when the
route was laid down for a negative belief system.

[Patient 2]
I want to do EMDR again.

[Patient 4]
If you can get out of this career 25 or 30 years healthy that’s a victory on its own.

[Forester Thacker]
I’ve heard so many stories of growth and healing.

[Patient 5]
I just kind of stepped out on the porch and I went, wow, the sky was bluer.

[Patient 3]
I don’t think I’ll ever be a hundred percent, but I’ve definitely come so far.

3:00
[Forester Thacker]
We really give people their lives back as therapists and that’s profoundly important to me.