Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a way of processing your painful experiences.  It helps your brain to interpret those experiences as less troubling or extreme as you remembered them originally and also to create new meaning and ways of coping with that experience or experiences.  

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EMDR does this in a few different ways.  The first is that you will stimilate both the right and left hemispheres of your brain with what is called bilateral stimulation.  This is traditionally done with eye movements going side to side as you think about a stressful event or experience.  Now often hand tappers and/or sound is used in addition to or in substitution of the eye movements.  The second part is to keep a dual awareness of the past experience as well as the present moment.  With so many parts of the brain stimulated new connections are made when the processing occurrs.

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EMDR has been around for about 30 years.  This is fairly new in the field of psychology but has been extensively researched and has been proven to be as valid as any other approach to therapy.  The benefit of this form of treatment over others is how quicky you can feel better.  Benefit is significantly faster than other forms of treatment.  Below shows the brain scan of an individual with PTSD before EMDR, which showed a highly aroused state of anxiety and stress.  After four sessions of EMDR, her brain scan is is indicated on the left which shows a normal level of activity.  These results are typical and hold up with long term follow up.