Forest
Beloved Grand Eagle
During the call in group earlier tonight, a 2013 article TMS author by James Alexander, PhD came up. In it, Dr. Alexander presents a theory of how EMDR works from the perspective of brain science. In particular, he uses the idea of memory reconsolidation to explain the effectiveness of EMDR.
When bad things happen to us, they can create emotional memories that may be very hard to discharge. It might seem that these "emotional learnings" are locked within our brain. However, new research has shown that these emotional learnings can be "reconsolidated," leading to healing. This is called memory reconsolidation, and EMDR is one of the therapies that can bring it about.
If you would like some basic information about EMDR, you can find it on our wiki page about it:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Eye_Movement_Desensitization_and_Reprocessing_(EMDR)
Here is the article by Dr. Alexander:
http://drjamespsychologist-com.webs.com/EMDR-Alexander(1)-1.pdf
It is very up to date, synthesizing a great deal of current science. Because of this, it is fairly technical.
When bad things happen to us, they can create emotional memories that may be very hard to discharge. It might seem that these "emotional learnings" are locked within our brain. However, new research has shown that these emotional learnings can be "reconsolidated," leading to healing. This is called memory reconsolidation, and EMDR is one of the therapies that can bring it about.
If you would like some basic information about EMDR, you can find it on our wiki page about it:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Eye_Movement_Desensitization_and_Reprocessing_(EMDR)
Here is the article by Dr. Alexander:
http://drjamespsychologist-com.webs.com/EMDR-Alexander(1)-1.pdf
It is very up to date, synthesizing a great deal of current science. Because of this, it is fairly technical.
