Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures
Also known as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, Third Edition, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, 3rd edition, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: Basic Principles, Protocols and Procedures, EMDR: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures
Francine Shapiro's primary textbook on EMDR therapy and its eight phases
At a glance
What it argues
A whole therapy, not a technique, Treatment as learning, Wider uses
See all 3Key ideas
Adaptive information processing, Eight phases, The three-pronged protocol …
See all 5Examples from the book
The walk in 1987, Seventy people, then a name, Doug, the veteran …
See all 4Criticism and limits
The origin story is disputed, Do the eye movements matter?, Pseudoscience charge
See all 3Read next
The Role of EMDR Therapy in Medicine, Lee and Cuijpers (2013), Getting Past Your Past …
See all 4Connections
Francine Shapiro, EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and 3 others
See all 5
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- The main clinical text for EMDR therapy, written by the woman who devised it.
- Its working hypothesis, adaptive information processing, says many symptoms come from memories stored unprocessed.
- It sets out the eight phases of treatment and protocols for special situations and populations.
- Shapiro stresses that eye movements are only one part of a whole therapy.
- The third edition adds later research and uses beyond PTSD, such as addictions, pain and moral injury.
Why it matters
- For clinicians training in EMDR, or anyone who wants to know what an EMDR session actually involves, from its originator.
- It presents the founder's case, so read it alongside the critical reviews.
Key facts
- Author
- Francine Shapiro1
- Published
- 1995 (1st ed.); 2001 (2nd ed.)3
- Third edition
- Hardcover December 29, 2017; e-book November 20, 20171
- Publisher
- Guilford Press1
- Pages
- 568 (3rd ed.)1
- ISBN
- 9781462532766 (3rd ed., hardcover)1
- Audience
- Clinicians; includes session transcripts, reproducible forms and treatment-fidelity scales1
- Influence
- Guilford bestseller, more than 225,000 in print, translated into multiple languages1
What it argues
-
A whole therapy, not a technique2
Eye movement is only one form of stimulation and one component; Shapiro says that if she started again she would call it "reprocessing therapy".
-
Treatment as learning2
Processing links a disturbing memory with more useful information, so its images, beliefs and emotions become less vivid and less valid.
-
Wider uses1
First developed for PTSD, it is now also used for complex trauma, anxiety disorders, depression and addictive behaviour, the publisher says.
Key ideas
-
Adaptive information processing1
Chapter 2 presents the model, which holds that distressing events are stored with their original emotions, sensations and beliefs, as a working hypothesis.
-
Eight phases1
Client history, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure and reevaluation, each with its own chapter.
-
The three-pronged protocol4
Process the past events that laid the groundwork, the current triggers, and what the client will need in the future.
-
Abreaction and blocks1
Chapter 7 covers what to do when strong emotion floods a session or processing stalls.
-
The cognitive interweave1
Chapter 10: a proactive strategy for working with challenging clients when processing does not move on its own.
Examples from the book
-
The walk in 19872
Shapiro dates the idea to a chance observation: "While walking one day, I noticed that some disturbing thoughts I was having suddenly disappeared."
-
Seventy people, then a name2
Working with some 70 people over about six months she built a standard procedure, first called Eye Movement Desensitization, because her focus was anxiety.
-
Doug, the veteran2
A Vietnam veteran held the memory of unloading bodies from a rescue helicopter while following her hand. After a few sets the sound vanished; later the scene looked like "a paint chip under water".
-
A rape survivor2
After treatment one client said of her attack: "It's still an ugly picture, but not because I did anything wrong." Her new belief was "I'm a strong, resilient woman."
Criticism and limits
-
The origin story is disputed3
Psychologists Gerald Rosen and Loren Pankratz show Shapiro was running neuro-linguistic programming workshops from 1985 and call her walk story "fanciful".
-
Do the eye movements matter?5
The book cites a 2013 meta-analysis as confirming the eye movements, but most meta-analyses find adding them makes little or no difference.
-
Pseudoscience charge3
Peer-reviewed reviews in the early 2000s called EMDR a pseudoscience because its proposed mechanisms cannot be tested; a 2024 meta-analysis found it as effective as other therapies.
Read next
-
The Role of EMDR Therapy in Medicine
Shapiro's short, free 2014 overview of the model, the phases and the trials.
-
The meta-analysis the book leans on for the effect of eye movements.
-
Shapiro's own version of the ideas for general readers, with self-help exercises.
-
The overview page, with the evidence and the criticism side by side.
Connections
Written by
Related
- EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing)TopicThe therapy this book defines
- Adaptive information processingTopicThe model the book presents as its working hypothesis
- Post-traumatic stress disorderTopicThe condition EMDR was first developed for
- Psychological traumaTopicAlso applied to complex trauma and moral injury
Links
Sources
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, Third Edition (Guilford Press) (opens guilford.com)
- Shapiro F. Chapter 1, Background: sample chapter from EMDR Therapy, 3rd ed. (Guilford Press, PDF) (opens guilford.com)
- Francine Shapiro (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
- Shapiro F. The Role of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy in Medicine. Perm J 2014;18(1):71-77 (PMC) (opens pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
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