A friend of mine has suffered for about 20 years from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to having been a victim of violent crime. She recently went to a therapist who used a technique called "EMDR" to help her recall the crime and process her feelings about it. After just one ninety minute session, my friend felt she had experienced significant healing and may not even need more EMDR therapy sessions.
Intrigued, I decided to learn more about EMDR. EMDR stands for "Eye Movement Desentization & Reintegration". The technique was invented in 1996 by Francine Shapiro, author of EMDR The Breakthrough Therapy for Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma". Shapiro was trying to find more effective therapies for chronic stress when she noticed her own tendency to move her eyes rapidly from left to right when thinking about stressful memories. She noticed that these eye movements made the traumatic memories become less stressful, as if they helped her "get through" the events an move on. Over time she developed EMDR. This therapy is now considered perhaps the fastest and most effective method for a person to work through painful memories ranging from minor stresses (public humiliation, unkind words from parents) to major traumas (being a victim of a violent crime or seeing friends die in combat).
Given my interest in left and right brain research, I'm interested in the fact that the technique involves shifting attention rapidly back and forth from left to right. This can involve moving the eyes from left to right, but it can also involve listening with headphones to recordings in which tones alternate rapidly between the left ear and the right ear. Shapiro admits to not understanding why EMDR works this way. She discovered by accident that stressful memories are dealt with much faster when the attention shifts back and forth from left to right. She speculates that this might have something to do with left brain and right brain differences and that it is similar to rapid eye movement in sleep. I suspect it is a way in which the brain ensures that it deals with stressful memories using all of it's best talents: the logic of the left brain and the intuition of the right.
I've started experimenting with EMDR as a form of meditation. I found some EMDR recordings by Liborio Conti on iTunes. Her "EMDR Meditations" album has beautiful instrumental pieces, each of which has sounds alternating rapidly from left to right. I haven't had horrible traumas in my life (at least not yet), but have some issues with harsh disapproval. So I've tried at times to listen to Conti while bringing to mind some of the most unpleasant times I can remember in which I've had harsh criticism from an authority figure. I'm not sure yet if this is having an effect, but I'm hoping it makes me a bit less sensitive to harsh criticism in the future.
Once, I did experience the immense joy during meditation. I must tell you that this joy was beyond the joy that we experience in this physical world. It is far more than that. After the 3 days meditations, I feel that my mind was discipline enough by not attaching feelings to the outside environment. My mind was peaceful and the outside world is full of distractions.
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