Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures

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Parnell, L. (2008). Tapping In: A Step-by-Step Guide to Activating your Healing Resources Through Bilateral Stimulation. Boulder, CO: Sounds True Books.

Discusses additional applications, including the treatment of complex trauma, addictions, pain, depression, and moral injury, as well as post-disaster response. 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 HealthDuring 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 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.

Archer, D. (2021). Anti-racist psychotherapy: Confronting systemic racism and healing racial trauma. Montreal: Each One Teach One Publications. The sixth phase of EMDR is the body scan, in which clients are asked to observe their physical response while thinking of the incident and the positive cognition, and identify any residual somatic distress. If the client reports any disturbance, standardized procedures involving the BLS are used to process it. Closure

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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.

Shapiro, F., & Forrest, M. (1997). EMDR: The Breakthrough “Eye Movement” Therapy for Overcoming Stress, Anxiety, and Trauma. New York: Basic Books. Scaer, R. (2005). The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Appendices with session transcripts, clinical aids, and tools for assessing treatment fidelity and outcomes. 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. 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.

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. Those little buzzers had worked some kind of Robin Williams magic. I didn't just understand the weight of my abuse logically. I felt it, like a blade through flesh, a bone popping out of place. I felt it like a lover saying it's not going to work: sharp, immediate, and terrifying. I actually felt, with searing clarity, the horror of what happened to me -- maybe for the first time ever. I felt how tremendously sad it was that I was forced to make my parents feel loved at such a young age. I felt how courageous I must have been to endure that torture, day after day for so many years, by the people I trusted most in this world. I felt a sense of love and adoration for my childhood self that I'd never been able to summon before. Marich, J. & Dansiger, S. (2021). Healing addiction with EMDR therapy: a trauma-focused guide. New York: Springer Publishing Company. Schwartz, A. (2017). The complex PTSD workbook: A mind-body approach to regaining emotional control and becoming whole. Berkeley, CA: Althea Press.