Customer Reviews

EMDR: The Breakthrough "Eye Movement" Therapy for Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma

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As a Vietnam Veteran who fought for 28 years to deny any Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) lingering from my year there, EMDR has allowed me to finally come home! Whether it is war, crime, abuse, neglect, whatever; this book helps you recognize yourself and inspires great hope for overcoming your taumas. EMDR is not hypnosis nor the power of suggestion. It is truly a breakthrough, allowing the physical brain to unload the emotional terrors locked inside in an amazing way. EMDR will bring you home! Don't live another day carrying around whatever is locked inside of your brain. I commend this especially to my brothers and sisters who have spent half of their lives trying to un-live Vietnam. Peace be with you.

This book gives a description of the evolution of EMDR, the eight phases of treatment, theories regarding possible underlying mechanisms, and controlled research. Most importantly, the book give extensive case descriptions with verbatim transcripts of EMDR sessions so that readers can see it in action. Chapters are devoted to the treatment of anxiety, trauma, phobias, depression, physical complaints, and a wide variety of fears and clinical conditions in children and adults. Through the detailed discussions and transcripts readers can see for themselves whether EMDR might be applicable to themselves or a loved one.

This book documents the healing journeys of numerous trauma survivors. Written for the general public, it provides an intimate view into the healing processes of persons treated with EMDR. Individual stories are written in narrative form, describing the experiences and symptoms of each person before, during, and after EMDR treatment. Therapy descriptions include transcripts of actual treatment sessions. Each chapter highlights recovery from a different type of disorder: combat related trauma, incest and child abuse, rape, phobias and panic attacks, sleep disorders and childhood trauma, attachment disorders, traumatic grief, addiction, and diagnosis of life-threatening illness. This book is very helpful for persons considering EMDR treatment as it explains the therapy process from the client's perspective.

This book contains hope for anyone who has gone through a life treatening experience, including the experience of having parent figures who were negligent or abusive. My own experience with this type of therapy is just beginning, but the results so far have been excellent. I became interested after seeing the life of a friend transformed through EMDR therapy. Beginning with this book I have gone on to explore variations in this type of therapy, and it is my impression that almost all types of emotionally stress can be addressed with one or more of these variations. The book is not just informative. It is also spell binding. It is a pleasure to read something that is both informative and well written.

Please note that this appears to generally be a review of some case histories in which EMDR was helpful. I was hoping to learn some techniques for practical application. It stresses in the disclaimer in the book that it is not a manual and no one should try to apply the techniques without first completing the training package, available at significant expense at the institute. In fact, it stated that attempting to apply them without first going through the training may be dangerous or harmful. If you are looking for only background information on the intervention or are already trained this may be an appropriate resource.

I read this book after my therapist recommended EMDR - I wanted to know what it was. The book was fascinating.....almost too good to be true. But after my first EMDR session last week, I am a believer. I have suffered from severe anxiety and depression for over 30 years and nothing has helped me. When I left the session last week I felt an unusual sense of lightness and have felt happy and much freer. I cut down on the medication I was taking. I am looking forward to more sessions to deal with other problems. I wish I could shout from the rooftops for anyone with psychological problems to try this therapy with someone who is well qualified.

"EMDR: The Breakthrough Therapy for Overcoming Anxiety, Stress and Trauma" describes a method for finally releasing the demons of our past. The book points out that it isn't necessarily the magnitude of the event that is important but our response to it. Most of us are familiar with the impact of post traumatic stress on war veterans but over time we tend to discount the long term effects of losing a loved one, not holding an infant or the chronic teasing from a sibling. Francine Shapiro shows us how EMDR can help free us from the BIG traumas as well as the "little" traumas of life. Fortunately, we don't have to understand how it can change us emotionally or physically. All we have to do is try it ourselves for 3 sessions and see what happens. After reading the book I understood how anxiety, stress and trauma changes our thinking and how EMDR can transform the negative into positive for any number of situations.

I read the criticisms from other readers and felt that they didn't understand the intention of the book. They wanted an explanation of how to do EMDR, and this is a casebook of examples not a text. If you want to understand how to do EMDR, you have to read the textbook by Dr. Shapiro that explains the procedures and protocols. If you want to actually do EMDR, you have to take the class. I did last year, and because I haven't practiced I am taking it again. It's not something you want to try on your own.

So, if you want examples of cases, read this book. If you want to know the protocols, get the textbook. They are both good. Some of the cases are somewhat graphic in detail, but you get a better idea of "how" EMDR is used. It is a good companion to the text.

I'm not sure I'd want a client to read this book, unless I'd carefully thought about how it would impact them. These are not your run of the mill cases. The majority of cases have suffered extremely horrific traumas to better illustrate how well EMDR can work.

What made this book hard to put down, once I've turned the first page, was the stories that told of immeasurable sorrow, grief and anger. What does one do to deserve all these? Yet what's most inspiring is how each victim rose above their circumstances and lived to tell their stories, through the help of EMDR.

Because this book chooses not to describe the method, but its use in the clinical sessions, it's hard not to come away with the idea that it is the eye movement that does all the work of healing. It is very shrewd of the author in some way to get EMDR its professional acceptance by having tight control over its training and application. It shows that it makes a huge difference who gets to practice the method and whether controlled studies have been conducted when it comes to gaining public recognition.

In any case, I believe in the efficacy of this method for emotional healing as well as peak performance. The reprocessing of memories makes perfect sense, if one has some knowledge of how the brain works. For every experience that we have, there are three dimensions: emotional, mental and physical. For every case study, the author describes in detail the reactions in all these dimensions and how the reprocessing brings them into equilibrium again so that the victim no longer has to be held hostage to the painful memories which evoke anxieties, self-doubts and physical discomfort.

Everything in this book is well summed up in a line on page 203. "It's not what happens to you that matters; it's how you deal with it."

This book is good for having an overview of EMDR and its history. It is not, however, the most current book out there and is also more appropriate for clinicians than for the layman.