Anyone heard of EMDR?

[brit]

EMDR apparently stands for 'eye movement desensitization and reprocessing'. According to stuff I have read on the net, it is being used by researchers in Amsterdam to 'cure' patients of dental phobia in as little as 3 x 45 minute sessions.

Seems from what I've read to be just a debriefing process so I can't see how it can work unless you have the right dentist too.

You may not fear dentists in general but you wouldn't voluntarily be Steve Martin's *patient in 'Little Shop of Horrors' now would you?

Crap dentists do phobic patients make?

 

[letsconnect]

I don't know how it would work in the case of justified fears. Personally, I feel that ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) provides a more useful theoretical framework for many types of anxiety "disorders" (including dental phobia). EMDR and NLP sort of imply that to a large extent it's "all in the mind" and as a result don't really allow for the reality of horrific experiences to be fully acknowledged. But they do seem to work for some types of phobias, I suppose it depends on the causes and the way the affected person views the causative events.

I've often wondered what percentage of dental phobics do fear dentists in general. I certainly did.

 

[trinitrotoluene]

EMDR is used for PTSD isn't it? i have complex PTSD and they're using that with me. a lot of times people who have a phobia don't really know where it comes from and EMDR is reaaally memory heavy and stuff so if you dnt have a like "base" for your phobia or you don't have a particularly traumatic experience i don't see how it could help 'cure' anyone of their phobias at all.

this post is so late i know, but i was searching through the histories and this just struck me as plain odd.

 

[scaredstiff]

This is like a whole new language for me - all these abbreviations, just like texting. I get messages from my nephews, especially round this time of year (amazing how once Christmas is on the horizon all my younger members of family seem to love me sooooo much) and because its all in text abbreviated accepted language, I don't understand, or at least take a long time to decipher.