[mr. tegu]

I have done some brief EMDR with clients over the years. It’s not some magical fix for trauma, as no therapeutic method is, but it can be beneficial for a time for people who have really buried traumatic things, refuse to consider them, or are so overwhelmed by feelings when discussing trauma that they can’t hardly even get words out to provide necessary information. I am not a specialist in it so I don’t have any unique tools but have asked people to do things like finger tapping or following a light with their eyes.

It’s use is really determined by the client and their challenges as opposed to being something that can be applied to anyone and just assume it will work.

The basic goal is for people to talk about and feel the unprocessed trauma differently than they have by making them focus on the task, which ideally forces them to take a step back from all of the negative thoughts and emotions so you aren’t constantly overwhelmed with emotions preventing any sort of improvement.

Simply recalling things or thinking or feeling differently about them doesn’t mean improvement though. It can be relieving to get those things out there but ultimately the client still has to work through the thoughts and feelings ti find improvement in their daily functioning.