ABSTRACT

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was invented by Francine Shapiro. It can be effective with trauma victims or others who have repeated unpleasant, intrusive thoughts. The patient qualified as a candidate for this sort of therapy. Shapiro's EMDR technique involves asking the patient to think about their past traumas and other associated ideas while they track with their eyes the moving finger of the therapist. Activity in various brain structures has been shown to change in response to EMDR. The two most interesting hypotheses about EMDR's mechanisms of action are: that eye movements stimulate rapid eye movement sleep sorts of brain processes; and that EMDR changes working-memory processes. EMDR moved what seemed to be a non-productive psychoanalytic discussion about transference and a dream, albeit an important dream, into a somewhat more useful process in which the patient practiced coping with pain.