The news is about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a successful therapy that has proven to be effective in cases of anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, stress and more. The method consists in moving your right hand back and forth in front of the patient's eyes between 25 and 30 times in intervals in long sessions (up to one hour in some therapies). EMDR is used to eliminate bad memories that we have and, by doing so, increase our wellbeing. It was first developed by psychologist Francine Saphiro.
According to Dr. Robin Logie (EMDR Association in UK and Ireland), the reason why we remember bad memories more than anything else is that our brains can't process them. Memories go through a mental process that allows us to assimilate them and gain experience and knowleadge from them. It doesn't work the same with bad memories: the brain is unable to assimilate. In addition, the sensorial part of the brain (sounds, smell, vision...) is the active one instead of the rational part when we recall this kind of memories, so the sensation we get is more vivid and not objective at all. This can make us feel really bad, both physically and emotionally. In the article, Saphiro even stated that there are between 10 and 20 memories stored in our brains that cause most of the pain in our lives.
The method has proven to be successful in many cases and it's training is now compulsory for the Ministry of Defence mental health personnel. However, Dr. Logie warns that you should put yourself in the hands of a specialist.
The method doesn't erase the memory completely. What it does is that it diminishes the emotional charge it has so the brain can reprocess it and, as the article says, "put it in the right place". In this way the memory is still there, but it doesn't cause us any bad emotions.
There are two theories on why this works. The first one says that it's like the REM fase of our sleep, in which we aren't able to focus on emotions because of our eye movement and can only process situations. The other says that our brains are less focused on emotions when distracted with something to do, with a work to do.
In my opinion this is a very interesting method. I think that a bad memory can haunt you forever, and for you to be able to calm yourself down and get rid off that bad feelings it causes you is a great thing and definetly an improving in wellbeing. I hadn't heard about this therapy before, but it seems like a helpful method that can be used in a lot of areas, such as PTSD. I'm very glad to know that such therapies (that don't involve pills or anything like that) are helping so much in nowadays society to make our lives a little bit easier.
Here's the news' video!
VOCABULARY
desensitize: to lessen the sensitivity of something.
pathway: a path, course, route or way.
ludicrous: causing or deserving laughter because of being absurd; ridiculous; laughable.
No comments:
Post a Comment