A therapy to address trauma using guided eye movements has been endorsed by celebrities such as Prince Harry, Miley Cyrus and Sandra Bullock.
Yet when my daughter Hattie told me her therapist had suggested EMDR – eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing – as part of a plan to manage the intrusive thoughts that frequently accompany her sometimes disabling obsessive-compulsive disorder, I was sceptical.
How on Earth, I questioned, could “eye desensitisation” get rid of distressing thoughts that had apparently resisted CBT – cognitive behaviour therapy – and medication?
EMDR’s history
EMDR therapy was developed by Dr Francine Shapiro, an American psychologist and educator, almost 40 years ago.
The discovery in 1987 was accidental. Walking in a park one day, she noticed that moving her eyes from side to side seemed to reduce the distress associated with upsetting memories.
She hypothesised that eye movements had a desensitising effect on negative emotions and began testing this on other people. She subsequently developed the method known as EMDR today.
How bilateral stimulation helps
While revisiting a negative memory, the patient’s eyes track the therapist’s moving finger or a light from side to side, which creates bilateral stimulation.