Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy developed by Francine Shapiro, an American therapist, in 1987.
While she was taking a walk in a  park and was engaed in deep and somehow disurbing thoughts, she noticed  that by moving her glance from one side of the trail to the other, thus creating spontaneous and regular eye movement, the felt that the nature of her thoughts was going through a re-adaptive process whereby she eventually realised that the negative charge she initailly felt had been greatly reduced.

Many years and many experiments later, a theory and a practice was formulated that nowadays is considered an excellent therapy for reducing the negative impact of traumatic events.

The main purpose of EMDR is to allow the individual to let go of past memories that are “frozen” and that create blockages, and to  facilitate adaptive responses that take place in the present.

By producing the possibility to reprocess such memories into something that is less emotionally distressing, the individual can perceive those past memories as belonging to their correct historical context and as such the memory is remembered rather than re-experienced.

I trained in part 1, 2 and 3 EMDR in 2011-2012 with Alexandra Richman (www.emdr-training.com) and Laura Parnell. I am an accredited EMDR Practitioner with EMDR Europe. I am also trained to practice EMDR online.