Christine is blocked.
She writes her own shows and has been on stage but somehow her creativity dried up a few years ago. She wants therapy to overcome this and came into my psychology office a few weeks ago complaining, “I used to be able to write. Now I’m blocked. I always start projects but never finish anything. I have to first clean up everything in my apartment if I’m ever going to succeed. Don’t you agree?”
We do agree to use EMDR, a psychotherapy approach named for the back and forth eye movements often used within this therapy to stimulate brain function.
To begin I have Christine find and focus on a scene where she can really feel the blocked feeling. The image is key: she sees herself sitting at home on her couch, immobile, with her files in front of her on the floor.
She puts the other aspects of this experience of being blocked into words. She describes her beliefs about herself as she looks at the scene, the intensity of the disturbance, her emotions and her bodily sensations. This thorough preparation will allow effective adaptational re-processing of the information stored in her brain.
My job as the EMDR therapist is to guide. Christine is holding 2 little buzzing devices in her hands which will vibrate, left then right. She is paying attention to the image and we begin the bilateral brain stimulation with pauses for her to recount whatever comes to mind.
That’s what EMDR looks like.
Debra BERG, The Bilingual Psychologist in Paris