Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) psychotherapy, developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in 1987, is an integrative psychotherapy approach, which emphasizes on memory storage and the information processing system. EMDR says that inadequately processed memories of traumatic experiences may get encoded in state specific, dysfunctional form, consequently leading to symptoms of disorders (Shapiro, 1995, 2001, 2007a). According to Shapiro, when a traumatic or distressing experience occurs, coping strategies get overwhelmed, accordingly, the memory and associated stimuli of the experience are not processed and get stored in an isolated memory network. Originally developed by Shapiro as a result of her interest in the relation …show more content…
This therapy uses an eight-phase approach where the patient is made to recall distressing memories, and simultaneously undergoes bilateral sensory input. The goal of EMDR is to reduce the long-lasting effects of distressing memories by developing more adaptive coping mechanisms. The AIP model used by Shapiro, hints that a particularly distressing incident may become stored in state-specific form in an isolated memory network. This leads to inability of this incidents memory to connect with other memory networks that hold adaptive information. The original perceptions of the memory can be triggered by external as well as internal stimuli, resulting in inappropriate emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions. Although, EMDR is primarily identified as a treatment for PTSD ( post traumatic stress disorder ) ,EMDR has been found to be an effective treatment of other mood disorders like anxiety, phobia etc. Recently ( 1994 ) the therapeutic possibilities for treating Panic Disorder with EMDR were raised by Goldstein and …show more content…
Simultaneously, the client also focuses on the dual attention stimulus. This includes focusing on the trauma while bilateral sensory input takes place ( eye movements, tapping on the knees and other stimulus done by the therapist ) The associative information elicited during the procesudre becomes the focus of the next set. This process is repeated until the client no longer feels distressed when thinking of the target memory. d) Installation The therapist asks the client to focus on the event along with the positive cognition developed in phase III. The client is asked to hold in mind the memory with the positive thought as the therapist continues with the bilateral stimulation. When the client feels he or she is certain the PC is fully believed and that belief is as strong as possible, the installation phase is complete. e) In vivo exposure Panic disorder patients often complain about biological symptoms like sweating, heartache etc. These symptoms are usually biopsychological. So in this phase, a full body scan is done to see if there are any lingering body sensations when thinking about the target memory and the positive
Unlike Naomi, Eric does not respond to drug therapy. Therefore, instead of a drug therapy, Eric receives the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or brain stimulation often an effective treatment for patients like Eric with severe depression who does not respond to a drug therapy. By shocking the brain, the ECT manipulates the brain’s chemical imbalance produced by the social-cultural stress experience. But after eleven ECTs in a month, Eric cannot function because of the temporary side effects of memory loss and confusion affecting his concentration to play the viola and his well-being. Then after four months of receiving ECT treatment, Eric returns to normal social functioning as a musician. Six months later, Eric is still playing the viola and has had no recurrence of his
Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as ECT, is a medical procedure that is used in the treatment of mental illness. In ECT, a small electrical impulse is sent through the brain, resulting in an ephemeral seizure. Though the process is generally effective, modern science is unaware of the explanation behind ECT's success. Its history is filled with a large amount of stigma and the use of ECT as a therapy is still debated today. ECT has evolved to a point where its beneficial effects can be maximized and its adverse effects can be minimized through proper administration.
Even though our bodies are in one place, our minds may be in another. In Martha Stout’s essay “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday,” the author introduces us to the idea of dissociation. Dissociation is when one’s mind is away from the body and he or she does not know what is going on in the physical world. Those that have traumatic histories may experience this. But because of dissociation, victims may not know if they had a traumatic past because a memory of it never really formed. Stout also finds that individuals may use dissociation as a way to protect themselves from trauma. Sometimes the slightest and smallest piece of a traumatic memory may bring into play the dissociation. When these individuals experience dissociation and become their “flyaway selves,” they do not remember what happened to them in the time they were “away.” For example, whenever “Los Angeles” was mentioned to Julia, one of Stout’s patients, she would “flyaway” as a way to protect herself from remembering any of the traumatic experiences that happened to her when she lived in Los Angeles. But Julia did not remember going through any traumatic experiences in her history because the memory never really formed. When she would “flyaway,” Julia would blackout and not recall any of the things she had done in the days previous to her “waking up” again. Stout came to the conclusion that Julia was abused as a child and as a way to escape during the abuse, she would become dissociated with her surroundings and what was happening to her. To not remember one’s own past puts them on a very vulnerable and difficult trail; dissociation may seem a way to protect oneself, but at the same time it’s harmful.
The strengths of the EMDR therapy are that it uses elements of cognitive behavior and psychodynamic to treat clients. (1).EMDR therapy has eight phases of the treatment approach, they are; in phase one is the development of the treatment plan and getting the history from the client. In the second phase of the treatment is to teach the client coping skills needed to deal with stress in a positive manner. In phases three, four, and five the focus is on the therapist assisting the client into finding positive belief to replace negative ones. In the seventh phase the clients keeps a journal for the week. In that journal the client writes down anything that may trigger any negative ima...
EMDR was developed in the late 1970’s by Francine Shapiro and was chiefly used on veterans of the Vietnam War. However it is now commonly used beyond the military population and is considered very effective in dealing with anxiety and depression. EMDR is used for individuals who have experienced severe trauma that continues to remain unresolved. The main objective of EMDR therapy is to desensitize patients to their stressful memories, reducing their persistent effects and allowing clients to develop more adaptive coping mechanisms. This is done in an eight-step procedure that includes having patients recall distressing images while being administered one of several types of dual sensory input, this including side to side eye movements, taping, or auditory tones. Bilateral stimulation is stimuli which are presented in left to right patterns. These can be in the form of auditory tones, hand...
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a treatment for severe mental illness in which the brain is stimulated with a strong electrical current which induces a seizure. The seizure rearranges the brain's neurochemistry and results in an elevation of mood. This essay asks: Is ECT any safer and more effective in treating mood disorders than drug therapies? This treatment has a controversial history ever since it was first introduced in 1938. I intend to argue that electroconvulsive therapy is indeed a safe treatment of mental disorders when other treatments have failed. Due to the development of safer and less traumatic ways of administering ECT, the treatment has made a comeback, is greatly used, and proves to be effective.
Seidler, G. H., & Wagner, F. E. (2006). Comparing the efficacy of EMDR and trauma-focused
An absence of education on the treatment is one of the most major reasons why electroconvulsive therapy is so strongly detested. Furthermore, individuals are not typically informed by psychiatrists on a technique such as ECT unless they are experiencing it personally, or someone they know is going through it. Consequently, countless individuals end up getting exposed to ECT for the first time through movies and other media depictions where it is, more often than not, portrayed negatively. Kellner states, “There have also been frequent misrepresentations of ECT in the media, and individuals and groups with particular social and political agendas have continued to convey distorted information about ECT (2)” (p. 1238). Education on ECT is so desperately needed for the reason that the information the majority of people seem to be given is incorrect or not based on fact. Additionally, these representations of the procedure are most always made to attack the treatment and render it inhumane. Moreover, the populous needs to be receiving their information from actual practitioners of this procedure, as opposed to those who are not, as it can help eliminate any inconsistencies or fallacies. By removing these misconceptions, numerous electroconvulsive therapy debates can be resolved, and a large amount of negative stigma towards the procedure can be
Since EMDR shows significant results when working with cases of adults who suffer trauma and children with self-esteem and behavioral problems, EMDR has the potential to be a beneficial treatment for children who experience emotional child abuse. EMDR is helpful to children because it does not require the child to disclose specific details of the trauma. While the child talks about the trauma broadly, the clinician requests him to make a visual image in his mind. In addition, EMDR does not require homework, specific insight, or intelligence (Luber & Shapiro, 2009). Applying EMDR to emotional child abuse potentially allows children to reach a lasting, stable resolution to the trauma faster.
Enns, M. W. M., Reiss, J. P. M. M., & Chan, P. M. (2010). Electroconvulsive therapy. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 55(6). (Enns, Reiss & Chan, 2010)
Answers to these questions are complex and incomplete. As an anxiety disorder, PTSD has its foundations in fear and "emotional memory." Like factual memory, emotional memory also involves the storage and recall of events and details; this has been termed the explicit or conscious memory (2). Emotional memory, though, has a second, distinct component. This facet, t...
In the summary it is noted that “memory access was bias towards (a) mood-congruent, (b) recent and (c) distinctive (unusual) events” (Berntsen, 1996). Earlier I had looked into detail on the moods and distinctiveness of my memories. After looking closer, I noted that ten of the twelve memories had taken place in the last five years, with the other two happening six and ten years ago. The same literature discusses how involuntary memories can be used as a defense mechanism, and that “may help cover up disturbing, perceptual aspects of the current surroundings” (Berntsen, 1996). This would make a lot of sense when examining my negative memory, because it seems to be used as a warning for me to think of something else or look at something else. In a different piece of literature, repeated memories of traumatic events are discussed. I would consider my negative memory to be a traumatic event, since it made me physically sick. It also comes to mind involuntary often, when I see or think of something that could relate or look like it. This could be that it is way of “working through and coming to terms with the trauma” for me (Berntsen, 2008). Yet another piece of literature lines up with my experience, and it comes from a 1998 publication by Dorthe Berntsen. It is written that, “the results suggest that
The therapist will collect demographic information including patient’s history and chief complaint (Bartson, Smith and Corcoran, 2011). The therapist focuses on assessing the client’s emotions and physical sensations following a traumatic event and not the details of the traumatic event (Bartson, 2011). This is what differentiates Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) from other therapies (Bartson, 2011). The process of EMDR therapy starts after this initial assessment.
Trauma is a psychological reaction to sudden traumatic events and overwhelming issues from outside. Additionally, the exposure to activities that are outside the human’s normal experiences. Traumatic events become external and incorporate into the mind (Bloom, 1999, p. 2). Traumatization happens when the internal and external forces do not appropriately cope with the external threat. Furthermore, trauma causes problems because the client’s mind and body react in a different way and their response to social groups. The symptoms of trauma relate to irritability, intrusive thoughts, panic and anxiety, dissociation and trance-like states, and self-injurious behaviors (Bloom, 1999, p. 2). Childhood trauma happens when they live in fear for the lives of someone they love (Bloom, 1999, p. 2). Judith Herman’s trauma theory states that the idea of repressed memories relates to unconscious behavior. These repressed behaviors include those inhibited behaviors relate to memories of childhood abuse. From McNally’s point of view memories of trauma cannot be repressed especially those that are more violent (Suleiman, 2008, p. 279). In addition, one of the theories used to dealing with trauma includes the coping theory. With situations, people tend to use problem-solving and emotion-focused coping. Emotion-focused coping happens when people are dealing with stressors. When the stressors become more
Cognitive Processing Theory and Emotional Processing Theory support the notion that following a traumatic event, distortions can occur to survivors’ basic assumptions about the world and themselves, which lead to changes in thinking and behaviour (Sharma-Patel, Brown & Chaplin, 2012). To treat the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, one must treat the underlying narrative surrounding the trauma (Sharma-Patel et al. 2012). Both theories posit that distorted assumptions must be challenged and corrected to enable the survivor to experience themselves as ‘competent and courageous’ (Sharma-Patel, et al. 2012). Emotion-Focused Therapy for Trauma (EFTT) is an evidence-based, short-term individual therapy that has proven highly effective in treating clients with trauma through its emphasis on both narrative and emotion processes (Paivio & Angus, 2017). Pennebaker (1997) argues that writing about a traumatic event allows the individual to organize the traumatic memory and most importantly, allows for cognitive change (i.e., accommodation) over the course of writing. Ramanathan (2015) suggests that in PTSD, it is possible that a part of one’s working memory has gone into ‘automatic mode’, so that mindful writing in