I am an accredited EMDR Practitioner with EMDR UK and Ireland and having completed specialist Attachment Focused EMDR training I am also an approved Attachment Focused EMDR Practitioner with the Parnell Institute.
What is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing and is a form of therapy that focuses on the treatment of Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was invented by Psychologist Francine Shapiro in the 1980s.
When someone experiences a traumatic event or has experienced ongoing trauma in attachment, the brain sometimes becomes unable to process the information. The experience becomes frozen in the brain in this unprocessed state. Although the memories may be consciously avoided, the experience can be triggered out of the control of the individual. Often people then experience the sensory memories of what was seen, heard, felt or tasted which can feel terrifying. Sometimes the trauma responses of fight, flight or freeze can also be experienced.
In EMDR the brain is stimulated bilaterally (left to right) using eye movements, sensory taps or sounds to allow the frozen memory to be processed like any other memory. This is thought to mimic REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, a processing phase of sleep.
The effect for clients is that often trauma responses reduce and the memories lose their power so that they can be placed with other experiences.
I practice two forms of EMDR
