EMDR: The Breakthrough "Eye Movement" Therapy For Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, And Trauma

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Dr. Russell has authored more than 13 articles and 6 book chapters on EMDR. He was awarded the Distinguished Psychologist Award by the Washington State Psychological Association for his sustained effort to transform military mental healthcare including advocating for EMDR trainings and treatment access, as well as the 2018 Outstanding Service in the Field of Trauma Psychology by APA Division 56 Trauma Psychology. In addition to getting a full history and conducting appropriate assessment, the therapist and client work together to identify targets for treatment. Targets include past memories, current triggers and future goals. Preparation The third phase of EMDR, assessment, activates the memory that is being targeted in the session, by identifying and assessing each of the memory components: image, cognition, affect and body sensation. Archer, D. (2021). Anti-racist psychotherapy: Confronting systemic racism and healing racial trauma. Montreal: Each One Teach One Publications.

Closure is used to end the session. If the targeted memory was not fully processed in the session, specific instructions and techniques are used to provide containment and ensure safety until the next session. Re-evaluation Marich, J. (2011). EMDR Made Simple: Four Approaches to Using EMDR with Every Client. Eau Claire, WI: PESI Publishing (Premiere) Scaer, R. (2005). The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Mark C. Russell, PhD, ABPP, is a core faculty member at Antioch University, Seattle, and the establishing director of the Institute of War Stress Injury, Recovery, and Social Justice. As a graduate student, Dr. Russell became Francine Shapiro's research assistant and was primarily responsible for developing the theory underlying EMDR. An excellent resource on an important evidence-based treatment for traumatic stress. This book is relevant for all practitioners interested in EMDR therapy, including novices as well as those who already use the approach. The third edition offers a wealth of detail to guide the reader in applying EMDR across a range of clinical presentations. Highly recommended."--David Forbes, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne; Director, Phoenix Australia--Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health Bannit, S.P. (2012). The Trauma Toolkit: Healing trauma from the inside out. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. In this book, Dr. Shapiro, the originator of this approach, and Dr. Russell, her longtime colleague and collaborator, describe their work and the significant controversy that attended its rise due to EMDR's challenging of traditional cognitive behavioral approaches to psychotherapy and mechanisms of change.

Burke Harris, N. (2019). The deepest well: Healing the long-term effect of childhood adversity. London: Pan McMillan. EMDR is a bizarre and wondrous treatment and anybody who first hears about it, myself included, thinks this is pretty hokey and strange. It's something invented by Francine Shapiro who found that, if you move your eyes from side to side as you think about distressing memories, that the memories lose their power. And because of some experiences, both with myself, but even more with the patients of mine who told me about their experiences, I took a training in it. It turned out to be incredibly helpful. Then I did what's probably the largest NIH-funded study on EMDR. And we found that, of people with adult-onset traumas, a one-time trauma as an adult, that it had the best outcome of any treatment that has been published.

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Menakem, R. (2017). My grandmother’s hands: Racialized trauma and the path to mending our hearts and bodies. Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press.

Marich, J. (2014). Trauma Made Simple: Competencies in assessment, treatment, and working with survivors. PESI Publishing: Eau Claire, WI. Unlike other treatments that focus on directly altering the emotions, thoughts and responses resulting from traumatic experiences, EMDR therapy focuses directly on the memory, and is intended to change the way that the memory is stored in the brain, thus reducing and eliminating the problematic symptoms.

During this phase, the client focuses on the memory, while engaging in eye movements or other BLS. Then the client reports whatever new thoughts have emerged. The therapist determines the focus of each set of BLS using standardized procedures. Usually the associated material becomes the focus of the next set of brief BLS. This process continues until the client reports that the memory is no longer distressing. Installation The therapist offers an explanation for the treatment, and introduces the client to the procedures, practicing the eye movement and/or other BLS components. The therapist ensures that the client has adequate resources for affect management, leading the client through the Safe/Calm Place exercise. Assessment Baldwin, M. & Korn, D. (2021). Every memory deserves respect: EMDR, the proven trauma therapy with the power to heal. New York: Workman Publishing Company. What's intriguing about EMDR is both how well it works and the question is how it works and that got me into this dream stuff that I talked about earlier, and how it does not work through figuring things out and understanding things. But it activates some natural processes in the brain that's helped you to integrate these past memories.”

Dworkin, M. (2005). EMDR and the Relational Imperative: The Therapeutic Relationship in EMDR Treatment. New York: Brunner-Routledge. Marich, J. & Dansiger, S. (2021). Healing addiction with EMDR therapy: a trauma-focused guide. New York: Springer Publishing Company. During EMDR therapy, clinical observations suggest that an accelerated learning process is stimulated by EMDR’s standardized procedures, which incorporate the use of eye movements and other forms of rhythmic left-right (bilateral) stimulation (e.g., tones or taps). While clients briefly focus on the trauma memory and simultaneously experience bilateral stimulation (BLS), the vividness and emotion of the memory are reduced. Francine Shapiro, PhD, the originator and developer of EMDR therapy, was senior research fellow emeritus at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, and executive director of the EMDR Institute in Watsonville, California. She founded and was president emeritus of the Trauma Recovery/EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs, a non-profit organization that coordinates disaster response and pro bono trainings worldwide. EMDR therapy emphasizes working with imagery, cognitions, emotions, somatic sensations, and behavior linked to a disturbing memory, as well as attending to past, current, and future-oriented experiential contributors. Unlike many psychotherapeutic treatments, EMDR does not require prolonged exposure, the direct challenging of beliefs, or numerous sessions to achieve results.

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Appendices with session transcripts, clinical aids, and tools for assessing treatment fidelity and outcomes. After the client has named the emotion he or she is feeling, the clinician asks, "On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is no disturbance or neutral and 10 is the highest disturbance you can imagine, how disturbing does it feel now?" The next session starts with phase eight, re-evaluation, during which the therapist evaluates the client's current psychological state, whether treatment effects have maintained, what memories may have emerged since the last session, and works with the client to identify targets for the current session. Parnell, L. (2008). Tapping In: A Step-by-Step Guide to Activating your Healing Resources Through Bilateral Stimulation. Boulder, CO: Sounds True Books. Marich, J. & Dansiger, S. (2018). EMDR Therapy and Mindfulness for Trauma-focused Care. New York: Springer Publishing Company