Healing the Healthy

I didn't find what I was looking for until the last two pages of Francine Shapiro's book, EMDR-Eye Movement Desentitization & Reprocessing.  I had been hoping to find something in Shapiro's book supporting my gut feeling that EMDR could be applied not just to healing after trauma but also to healing the healthy--to making a good life even better.  Finally, in the next to last page, I read that, "The accelerated learning that takes place with EMDR is not limited to going from dysfunctional to functional behavior.  The learning can also go from functional to exceptional."  Shapiro goes on to explain how EMDR clinicians have become coaches for athletes and musicians to help them visualize success and achieve peak performance.

As I've described in my last few blogs, EMDR is a therapeutic technique that works by mimicking the Rapid Eye Movement of dreams to enable vivid "dreaming" while awake.  It can be Rapid Eye Movement, but it can also be Rapid "Ear" Movement if the subject listens with headphones to sounds that alternate rapidly from left to right.  Based on my personal experience listening to EMDR audio-tracks, I buy into the idea that this simple technique can lead to more vivid memories of the past or more vivid visualizations of the future.

EMDR started with a focus on healing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder--helping someone who personally or through a loved one has experienced a crime, an illness, an accident, or a natural disaster.  When the person "dreams" about the trauma in a safe environment, with the support of a professional therapist, they make remarkable progress facing their past and getting it behind them.

But can this same "dream" state help us in a more positive way?   Can it help us deal with minor issues?  Even more positively, can it help us vividly dream about success?  The last couple of pages of Shapiro's book suggest that this can happen.

At times in my daily meditations in the last few weeks, I've experimented with listening to EMDR soundtracks while visualizing success at work, success spiritually, with my family, in volunteer work, success at relaxing, at achieving intense and pure concentration on my breath during meditation, at visualizing the future 5 years from now.  I can't be sure, but I think the EMDR soundtrack acts like "steroids" for my imagination.  It becomes easier for me to picture the way I want things to be.