Customer Reviews

Emdr As an Integrative Psychotherapy Approach: Experts of Diverse Orientations Explore the Paradigm Prism

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This is a fascinating and very readable book. It is a book that will probably be of interest to clinicians and theorists of all orientations - even those who do not practice EMDR. I really enjoyed it!

Each chapter is written by a leading expert from every major psychotherapeutic orientation, and offers a rich and easily understood description of the specific therapy. Each chapter contains the interesting reflections of these leaders on the nature of therapeutic process and change. The book provides a unique perspective of the main schools of psychotherapy, demonstrating their commonalities, and illustrating how they can complement each other.

The authors discuss the integration of EMDR with their own therapeutic approach. Although the chapters are distinct in style, emphasis, language, and perspective, all share the same format and focus. Each chapter contains explanations of what that approach brings to EMDR and what EMDR offers that approach. Case studies and session transcripts provide fascinating examples and clearly illustrate the integrative treatment process.

The treatment of a wide range of complaints is described. These include depression, social phobia, marital discord, anger dyscontrol, attachment disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, body image disturbance, and other problems. As a clinician, I appreciated the practical details that illustrate the integrative application of EMDR with these other modalities.

Authors and approaches include:

Francine Shapiro, EMDR
Dan Siegel, developing mind, interpersonal neurobiology
Bessel van der Kolk, somatic experience, subcortical imprints
Paul Wachtel, psychoanalysis
Nancy Smyth & Desmond Poole, cognitive behavioral therapy
Jeff Young et al, schema-focused therapy
Clifford Lazarus & Arnold Lazarus, multimodal therapy
Al Bohart & Les Greenberg, experiential psychotherapy
Florence Kaslow et al, couple & family therapy
Laura Brown, feminist therapy
Stephen Gilligan, hypnosis
Sheila Krystal et al, transpersonal psychology, eastern nondual philosophy
John Norcross & Francine Shapiro, integrative psychotherapy

The book also contains a summary of research findings and answers to frequently asked questions about EMDR.

Easy to read and helpful for understanding the process of EMDR. I would have to agree with the previous reviewer Laura M that PEACEFUL HEART : A Woman's Journey to Healing is a must-read. Aimee Jo Martin's story clearly illustrates and details her journey with successful EMDR treatments. Quite powerful if you want to really see how effective EMDR can be.

The editor (and creator of EMDR), Shapiro, has done a masterful job in weaving together material from several psychological traditions, and the principle of alternating bilateral stimuli--such as eye movements--to form an effective approach toward resolving historical patterns, such as phobias, complexes and PTSD artifacts. This psychologist has really done her homework, and I have found her exposition of the approach to be most satifying. In this book, representatives of different therapeutic traditions explain how they have employed EMDR with their patients. There is also a fair amount of speculation on why it works. This is an important book, and there is extensive citation of sources. Exactly how EMDR works, neurologically, is still something of a mystery.

The key appears to be that bilateral work--as in Applied Kinesiology's "cross-patterning" and "cross-crawling" tends to recruit and integrate the two cerebral hemispheres, so as to expedite the higher brain's accessing of lower brain centers in the limbic system, so as to allow reprocessing of traumatic material which has been just setting there, like an undigested meal in the stomach, poisoning the client's life. I will add that I have found psych. "tapping" to dovetail nicely with EMDR technique. These tools work so well, that their operation may seem nothing short of miraculous to many. At least for some psych. problems, they work more rapidly than ordinary "talking therapy," and much more rapidly and effectively than psychoanalysis.

A criticism is that--as far as I can tell--no one in this book credits the work done by Dr. Jung. The Jungian complex is essentially the same as the PTSD phenomenon, which is discussed extensively throughout this book. And, no credit is allowed L.R. Hubbard. The scientology engram is also essentially identical to the PTSD phenomenon, and much good work has been done by those who dub themselves scientologists, rather than psychologists. There are elements of Dianetics and Scientology which are very similar what one finds in EMDR.

Still, EMDR as a technique is an important force in psychology today, and this book is a satisfying and fairly comprehensive treatment of the subject.