Eye Movement Integration Therapy (emi): The Comprehensive Clinical Guide

This book introduces Eye Movement Integration therapy (EMI), one of the most innovative and effective new treatments available to psychotherapists today, offering new hope to those who endure the often debilitating aftereffects of psychological trauma.

After experiencing traumatic events, many people continue to be troubled by disturbing and intrusive memories, for months, years-even for a lifetime. Their symptoms range from anxiety to depression, from sexual dysfunction to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This book introduces Eye Movement Integration therapy (EMI), one of the most innovative and effective new treatments available to psychotherapists today, offering new hope to those who endure the often debilitating aftereffects of psychological trauma. EMI is astonishingly rapid in its effects, freeing clients from the burden of unresolved memories of almost any form of trauma--from childhood abuse to car accidents; from rape to natural disaster to combat. This is not hypnosis, nor magic, but an extraordinarily direct means of releasing the power of the mind to do what it was designed to do: heal itself. While the neurologic basis for the efficacy of EMI remains unknown, the book does present a substantive discussion of the current research, which may also shed light on the underlying physiological causes of psychological trauma. EMI was developed in the late 1980s by Connirae and Steve Andreas. These two renowned therapists, who specialize in the dissemination of effective interventions based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), developed a technique for using guided eye movements to assist a client to freely recall interrelated memories and experiences. This book presents the background and theoretical bases for the development of EMI, as well as extensive and detailed instructions for its clinical application. It is filled with dozens of examples drawn from clinical cases and based on the author's extensive experienceteaching the technique. EMI shares similarities with another psychotherapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), discovered in 1989 by Francine Shapiro. Like EMDR, EMI uses eye movements to assist the client to access and process traumatic memories that are causing distress, however the underlying presumptions and numerous technical aspects of the two methods differ substantially. Combined, these two highly efficient treatments together constitute a new approach to psychotherapy--one that directly incorporates the emotional, somatic and sensory aspects of traumatic memories into the treatment process.