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

Rating:
Summary: A page turner
Review: 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."