EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is a psychotherapeutic treatment discovered in 1989 by american psychologist Francine Shapiro. EMDR is used to process traumatic memories and over the years it has been the subject of many research studies. Today is considered to be an evidence-based treatment for PTSD and it is validated by more research publications than any other form of therapeutic treatment in the field of trauma.

EMDR treatment is approved by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and the World Health Organization. Treatment with EMDR is brief, valid and can be used with people of any age, including children.

As a treatment of choice for the effects of trauma, EMDR ha now been adapted to be integrated in therapeutic interventions aimed at a wide range of disorders. Emdr is proved to be valid not only for the processing of past trauma but also for increasing individual resources and self esteem therefore allowing the survivor to fully live their life after trauma.

When thinking of trauma, we think of events that are outside normal human experience. I’m referring to experiences universally recognised as traumatic, such as war, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, rapes or any other violent form of aggression. These ‘abnormal’ events may, as it is widely accepted, cause a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). But trauma is not only about those traumatic events with a ‘big T’.

Trauma is personal, meaning that it disrupts the way people relate to themselves, the world and other human beings. Traumas with a ‘small t’, or relational traumas, especially if they are experienced overtime in the context of an attachment relationship, may be equally devastating.

Early, chronic trauma at the hands of the very people who should be a source of love and protection, like parents or other attachment figure, may be at the root of disorders such as complex PTSD (a complex form of post traumatic stress disorder) or dissociative disorders.

Trauma, whether a single traumatic event or a chronic form of traumatisation, interrupts the natural course of one’s life. A part of the self becomes uncapable to move forward, live in the present and look at the future. This part remains stuck in the past, held captive by events, images, emotions and body sensations experienced during trauma. That is how trauma comes back, over and over, as if time had stopped. Trauma intrudes in the present, no matter how much effort you make to ignore it or to forget. Unless it is faced and overcome, trauma will resurface in the present. Overcoming trauma involves accepting the part of the self that is stuck in the past and helping this part in the process of realising that the trauma is over. Overcoming trauma involves living a new present, where the traumatic past takes a new meaning.

In Dissociative Identity Disorder, the most serious of dissociative disorders, the dissociated parts of the self that are stuck in trauma time may be protected by amnestic barriers. In DID there are parts that function in everyday life (Apparently Normal Person) and parts that are stuck at the time of trauma (Emotional Parts). The emotional parts intrude into the survivor’s life through flashbacks, impulses to self harm, intrusive thoughts, auditory allucinations, unexplainable bodily symptoms, sudden overwhelming emotions in response to triggers (internal or external) that activate traumatic memories. The hallmark of DID is loss of time in the present, finding oneself in unknown places, losing minutes, hours or even days without being able to remember what happened during the time loss.

Because of the seriousness and the wide array of symptoms that characterise DID, people who suffer from this disorder are often misdiagnosed. Hearing voices commenting or criticising or holding a conversation are Schneiderian symptoms usually associated with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. In the last thirty years research evidence has demonstrated that schneiderian symptoms are actually more common in DID than in psychosis:

Ellason, J.W. e Ross, C.A. (1995). Positive and negative symptoms in dissociative identity disorder and schizophrenia: A comparative analysis. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 183, 236-241
Kluft, R.P. (1987). First-rank symptoms as a diagnostic clue to multiple personality disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 293-298
Ross, C. A. (2004). Schizophrenia: innovations in diagnosis and treatment. Binghamton, NY:Haworth
Ross, C.A. e Joshi, S. (1992). Schneiderian symptoms and childhood trauma in the general population. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 33, 269-273
Ross, C.A., Miller, S.D.,Reagor,P.,Bjornson,L., Fraser, G.A. e Anderson, G. (1990). Schneiderian symptoms in multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 31, 111-118