Twenty-Five Minutes in the Life
of an EMDR Client
David Blore - UK Facilitator
Abtract: A single
case of EMDR used with a Road Traffic Accident treated in 25 minutes is described
(mainly) from the client's perspective
A PERSONAL STORY
Much was heard in the early days of EMD treatments consisting of single session
success stories (e.g.. McCann 1992), but my experience is that such cases are
very much in the minority. However, now and then such an event does arise and
they can be very rewarding experiences. The first such case I can recall occurred
in 1994 whilst treating a client who had recently been burgled and had started
to develop marked agoraphobic symptoms. Despite the appropriate preparation, my
incredulous student, not to mention the client, thought I'd pulled off some sort
of magical conjuring trick. What is this EMDR, I heard them both ask? If the truth
be known, I was quite amazed myself, but in these situations one is tempted to
preserve therapist 'dignity' and take such events in one's stride.
Quite recently, a client, suffering from PTSD, was referred to me through the
British medicolegal system. After nearly five years of using EMDR, reeling off
successful treatments one after another, I think I could be excused for thinking
that this client was 'merely' another poor soul psychologically injured in the
unending stream of Road Traffic Accidents. Not so. In fact I write this brief
article as penance for thinking that way. Each client enters into EMDR with fresh
learning possibilities for the therapist. The following is not only a description
of the client's experience of EMDR, but it is verbatim the client's own words:
".......... The procedure was explained to me in the greatest detail, but
my first experience of EMDR was a 'dry run' by way of preparation for the main
event, the treatment of my memories of the road traffic accident. I started by
focusing on an event in my life which happened some thirteen years ago in which
I kept getting rejected for a place at college. The therapist asked me to concentrate
on a picture that summed things up, along with a thought and the feelings that
came up. Initially I had difficulty doing this, but I soon got the idea. I started
to follow the therapist's fingers and the frustration and anger was soon fading.
How could this be? I felt what I can only describe as a rosy glow - the animosity
had gone. I could scarcely believe what had happened. At least I knew what to
expect when it came to dealing with my memories of the road traffic accident,
although I had very mixed feelings. One part of me said 'well you've seen what's
happened and it didn't hurt a bit', while the other argued 'but these memories
are different, they've been locked into the forefront of your thoughts and everything
else has been trying to push it away with little success, so how can following
the therapist's fingers remove it?'
I was still in two minds when we started the first treatment session. The image
we started on was of me, in my car before the point of impact. I could see the
look of horror on the other driver's face as he realised he was going to cross
my path and collide with me. I could feel the terror as I realised we were going
to crash and there was no way of avoiding it. I heard the crunch of metal and
the breaking of glass at impact - I was going to die! I suddenly got the impression
that my late husband, who had died some seven years previously, was sat in the
passenger seat beside me. The thought then occurred to me that if I should die
my two sons would have no parents - it could not happen, dying wasn't an option.
I stopped telling the therapist what was happening at the point that I realised
I had faced my own mortality, I felt very depressed. For awhile the emotion didn't
change and eventually the therapist asked what had been the outcome of the accident.
Of course I had survived, there was no reason to be depressed. The eye movements
continued and soon it was going - the centre of my thoughts for the last two and
a half years was moving slowly taking with it the negative feelings. Could it
be that simple? The memory was now a shadowy image rather than being dominant
and I was later told that my eyes kept moving from side to side for some minutes
after the therapist stopped moving his fingers. With the same memory, which had
now been zapped out, the therapist concentrated on my positive thought about the
accident. Wonder of wonders I was able to do this, the positive term now seemed
obvious because I had lived. This was a huge step forward - a gigantic one. I
really felt elated.
It is only on reflection that I now realise how ill I had been during those two
and a half years. With the onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following the
road traffic accident, I became a shadow of my former self, frightened, and unable
to sleep or think about anything else. Now it was the memories of the accident
that were the shadow of their former selves. I am free to live again..........."
Perhaps not such an unusual account in itself, although the eye movements that
perpetuated themselves is somewhat unusual in my experience. What is missing is
that the whole of the above account occupied merely 25 minutes, or about a third
of an EMDR session. This begs the question - just how short is it possible to
make EMDR? I will not attempt to answer this question here, suffice to say that
this was not just another client with PTSD. It was twenty five minutes of a privileged
sharing in someone's freedom from misery.
Acknowledgements
The author sincerely thanks the client involved in this article for taking the
time to commit pen to paper. It was worth it.
References
McCann, D.L., (1992) 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
due to devastating burns overcome by a single session of Eye Movement Desensitization',
Journal of Behavior Therapy & Experimental Psychiatry, 23(4):319-323.
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