by Christine Elias
Although Eye Movement Integration (EMI) is helpful for a variety of issues, it is particularly good news for anyone who has experienced something traumatic and continues to relive it.
Maybe you have been wondering if what you have experienced is considered traumatic. It may be helpful for you to understand that what qualifies your past experience as traumatic is the ongoing negative impact on you, rather than the characteristics or nature of the experience itself. In other words, if what you experienced feels traumatic, and interferes with your ability to self-regulate, it is traumatic.
EMI is different than regular counselling because it is not talk therapy, it is a neural therapy. EMI is based on the principle that eye movements are naturally connected with accessing sensory, cognitive and affective information that is stored in your brain, and can be guided externally, by a trained counsellor, to allow for the integration of traumatic memories.
During a traumatic experience, when your emotional or physical survival relies on a quick reaction, bits of sensory information (the things you see, hear, smell or feel) take a natural shortcut in your brain. These fragmented sensory pieces of the traumatic event, are recorded and stored; isolated in your brain, without conscious evaluation and without an awareness of time. This is why when something reminds you of the threatening experience, your traumatic memory networks are activated or triggered and it feels like you are reliving it.
In an EMI session, the counsellor will ask you to hold in your mind the traumatic memory you wish to work on, while guiding your eye movements with their moving hand. This process activates your traumatic memory networks and allows for the integration of those isolated sensory recordings with cognitive and rational information that has gathered since the time of your threatening experience.
Once this integration has taken place, you will not forget your memory, but when you are reminded of it, you will no longer relive it, as you have in the past. The filing away of your traumatic memory that occurs during EMI is permanent.
If you are interested, and would like to read more an EMI Testimonial, click here.