Could I ask you what it is about EMDR that places it above other modalities in your opinion?
EMDR can heal a painful memory stored in your brain that is too painful to heal itself, or to even access it without emotional flashbacks.
Any new incident that reminds you of that memory gets attached to it and becomes part of the original issue, and results in the same emotional reaction. Then you develop debilitating emotional problems because you can't heal it and more and more memories get attached to it.
EMDR uses bi-lateral stimulation (going from right brain to left brain very quickly) to take you from the bad memory on one side of the brain to the safety of the present on the other side of the brain, so you aren't trapped in the past and don't get stuck in the flashback.
Along with that the therapist intervenes to correct the false beliefs attached to the line of thoughts that keep you from feeling safe.
When you reach the end of one line of thought, having developed a feeling of safety by correcting your misconceptions, you go back to the original traumatic thought and repeat the process by following the next connected line of thoughts to its end. You keep going back to the original painful incident until all the lines of thought connected to it are brought into safe present reality.
My therapist uses buzzers with lights on them that I hold in each hand and they go back and forth several times a second, forcing my right and left brain to take turns focusing on the past and the present.
The military uses it for PTSD patients. It has a scientifically proven better cure rate without recurrence than other forms of therapy.
