8 things you didn’t know about EMDR – the therapy that could change your life

In the 1980s, the American Ph.D. psychologist Francine Shapiro developed a completely innovative therapy technique, based on eye movements, for the reprocessing of difficult and painful memories installed in people’s brains and which generate illnesses such as post-traumatic stress. and depression – EMDR ( Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or Desensitization and Reprocessing through Eye Movements). In different parts of the world for more than 15 years, the technique is spreading more and more. A new term emdr cloud is also being used for online emdr therapy. According to a Brazilian therapist of EMDR, Ana Lúcia Castello, today, there are more than 2500 professionals trained to apply the technique, spread across more than 65 citiesin Brazil. “The EMDR is a true revolution,because with the addition of rapid eye movement (REM)-like eye movements provides essential help to natural healing mechanism of the mind that, up until that point, the brain had not been able to accomplish it alone,” claims Ana Castello. She has eight points for comprehension.

1. EMDR recommended by World Health Organization. The technique is proven to be effective and allows traumatic memories to be re-signified in the human brain, curing the individual of traumas that transform his personality.
2. The human brain is divided into two hemispheres  – on the right side, emotions and artistic potential predominate, on the left, logical and rational abilities. This division makes it difficult to synchronize reason, emotion and action, which affects the processing of life experiences. EMDR stimulates different areas of the brain to realign reason and emotion by better processing dysfunctional memories .
3. Visual, auditory and tactile stimuli from left to right , in combination with other steps (08-phase protocol) specific to the EMDR procedure, increase the processing of traumatic or disturbing memory information that has been poorly stored, accelerating learning through experience and overcoming the trauma.
4. EMDR should be applied by psychologists and doctors who work with therapies . Professionals in psychology and medicine specializing in therapies have available courses approved by the Associação Brasileira de EMDR and by the EMDR Institute (USA)/ EMDR Iberoamérica . There are training courses for this approach in several cities in Brazil, promoted by two companies that are specialists in this area.
5. Ideal therapy for traumatized children . The technique can be applied to children, adolescents and adults to overcome trauma, anxiety disorders and depression. “In children, the results are even faster – due to the fact that the child’s brain has cleaner memory networks and fewer traumatic experiences”, says Ana Lúcia Castello, who is also a specialist in EMDR work with Children and teaches courses in this area for all over Brazil. “Within few sessions with the therapist, we have seen phenominal improvements in children who were ging through phobias and traumas”.
6. Traumas such as sexual abuse  are also reprocessed with EMDR sessions more quickly and effectively than a normal verbal therapeutic process. The trauma is reprocessed, and the patient may be able to access healthy emotional networks with the work and transform that experience into something that existed but that may not cause so much suffering anymore, experiencing a positive and confident feeling.
7. It is a potent method in the treatment of people with visual or hearing impairments, autistic people, people with Down Syndrome  who can benefit from bilateral brain stimulation, reprocessing the traumas of these patients, minimizing the symptoms of the diseases and installing positive beliefs about them and about the world.
8. EMDR is not recommended for patients with severe neurological problems and those with serious heart conditions. For these patients EMDR must be cleared by their respective medical specialists.