Interview with Francine Shapiro Ph.D.

from "Treating Abuse Today"

TAT: Would you describe the basics of EMDR for the benefit of readers not trained in it?

Shapiro: How to take a complex method and turn it into a 25 word answer! EMDR is a method by which we're able to target and reprocess traumatic memories such as rape, combat, accidents, or other memories that are causing individuals distress or ruining their lives by contributing to feelings of lack of self-esteem, lack of power, lack of being loved in the world, etc. These can be all those memories of early childhood experiences that become locked into the system, probably because of the stress during a developmental window. Obviously rape and combat experiences shape a person's self-view and EMDR is very effective in treating more recent adult trauma. However, it needn't stop here...much earlier experiences often negatively define the person in the present time. Therefore...we consider these childhood experiences no less a trauma and no less amenable to treatment. The method provides a way of being able to access those memories and then presumably catalyze an inherent information processing system that we believe we all have. This information processing system is hard-wired in all of us to be adaptive but early childhood experiences basically block the system and cause psychological disorders and distress. With EMDR we're able to go in, access those memories and catalyze that information processing system which then allows the information to move to an adaptive resolution. This means the person is able to take what is useful, self-enhancing or instructive from the experience and discard the rest.

TAT: What is your theory on how EMDR works?

Shapiro: It's vital to remember that EMDR is much more than just the eye movement, and positive treatment effects are built into every component. However, we believe that the eye movement specifically might be linked to what occurs in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. The unconscious information comes up to be processed and the eye movements catalyze the information, allowing it to go to a less distressing form. The problem is that if the information is too distressing it can disrupt the eye movement and REM sleep so that REM sleep is not able to do its job. One of EMDR's components is a variation on this form of eye movement that enables us to take the body and mind further than it can go in the natural state. So we believe that that's one of the major parts of what's occurring with EMDR: capitalizing on an inherent mechanism the body has within it in a direction toward self-healing

[ *EMDR: Unblocking the Mind's Natural Healing Process: An Interview With Francine Shapiro, Ph.D, by Sheryll Stuart Thomson M.A., M.F.C.C., published in Treating Abuse Today, Vol. 3, No.2]