Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy

Running on automatic1

The mind reacts automatically; the same processes that recall a nursery rhyme can drown us in anxiety, depression, heartache and physical pain.

Unprocessed memories1

A memory that drives present reactions is "unprocessed": stored with the emotions, physical sensations and beliefs felt at the time.

Childhood misperceptions1

Children take some false things as real, such as being inferior because bullied, or causing a divorce, and these come back automatically later.

Memory networks1

Every experience is stored in networks of neurons, which form the unconscious and colour how each new situation is read.

Find the memory1

Identify the memories behind personal and relationship problems, manage them yourself, and recognise when professional help is needed.

Beyond healing1

The techniques also aim at performance, the publisher says, taught to Olympic athletes, executives and performers.

Roses are red1

Shapiro asks the reader to notice what follows "Roses are red". The automatic "Violets are blue" is untrue, yet comes up anyway.

Justine1

A 25-year-old clings to every boyfriend who leaves. Therapy traced it to a storm at age 6, when her parents downstairs did not hear her cry.

Ben and Stacey1

A businessman with anxiety before every presentation, and a woman with constant dread, fear of abandonment and recurring images of red and a candle.

EMDR: The Breakthrough Therapy

Shapiro's earlier book for general readers, built on case studies of the therapy itself.

EMDR therapy textbook

The clinical text behind the self-help version.

Adaptive information processing

The model of unprocessed memory the book explains.