EMDR Therapy

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment initially designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories, which can be the most significant issue for veterans. According to the Adaptive Information Processing model, EMDR therapy facilitates accessing and processing traumatic memories and other negative life experiences to bring about an adaptive resolution. After successful EMDR therapy treatment, affective distress is alleviated, negative beliefs are reformulated, and physiological arousal is diminished. During EMDR therapy, the client is exposed to emotionally distressing information in brief doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. The most common external stimulus is therapist-directed lateral eye movements, but other stimuli, such as hand-tapping and auditory stimulation, are also frequently used. It is hypothesized that EMDR therapy facilitates access to the traumatic memory network, thereby improving information processing and forging new connections between the traumatic memory and more adaptive memories or information. It is believed that these new associations result in comprehensive information processing, new learning, eliminating emotional distress, and developing cognitive insights. EMDR therapy employs a three-pronged protocol: the past events that laid the foundation for dysfunction are processed, forging new associative links with adaptive information; the current circumstances that elicit distress are targeted, and internal and external triggers are desensitized; and imaginal templates of future events are incorporated to assist the client in acquiring the skills necessary for adaptive functioning.