How often does it happen that a seemingly healthy and prosperous person becomes isolated, becomes aggressive or, on the contrary, falls into a state of absolute indifference to everything that happens around. And who has not felt the pressure of an impending depression? This is digging into yourself, breakdowns on others for no particular reason, a feeling of endless loneliness, panic attacks or constant anxiety, loss of interest in life, low self-esteem and much more.

Problems?

But there are more serious psychological problems - the consequences of physical abuse, childhood trauma, unhappy love, loss of loved ones, disasters, accidents, humiliation, pressure and many other mental wounds. These injuries cannot be cured with ointment, plaster, or plaster. It is not customary to talk about them with relatives and friends. And in general, in our country, engaging in mental health is considered almost indecent. But if you want to improve your life, find peace and happiness, develop, learn how to achieve your goals and be in harmony with yourself and the world around you, you should start by solving your personal problems. Today there is a proven and effective psychological technique that can be used even at home on your own without health risks and wasting time looking for a personal psychotherapist.

DPG method (decoding)

F. Shapiro (USA) at the end of the twentieth century, almost by accident, developed and began to apply in her practice a method that helps people in difficult life situations. She called it "eye movement desensitization and processing." The essence of the method is to reduce the intensity of anxiety from stress by focusing on the rhythmic movements of the eyeballs.

It is interesting that this approach to solving many psychological problems is not initially built on scientific assumptions, but, on the contrary, arises from personal observations. The difficult experience Francine Shapiro experienced (cancer, shattered dreams, loss of loved ones) and the almost accidentally found way out of stress led to the discovery of this technique. Assumptions about the reason for the effectiveness of the method appeared much later, after long-term observations of patients and obtaining numerous positive results.

What is the method

During therapy, the psychiatrist makes movements with his hand (or pointer), which the patient must clearly follow. While observing the movements, it is necessary to immerse yourself in memories or imagine a disturbing situation, mentally talk with yourself or the person with whom the conflict has arisen (the course of these thoughts is controlled by the doctor, it all depends on the problem that needs to be solved). At first, the sensations are extremely unpleasant, but after about 30 minutes of the first session and fear ends and more positive thinking comes to replace it, everything suddenly falls into place, anger goes away and memories no longer bring such pain. To consolidate the result, the procedure is usually carried out several times.

Why it works

The main hypothesis confirming why the method works is the idea that there is some kind of not fully understood mechanism for processing any incoming information. Stress, fear, pressure - all this knocks down this mechanism and does not allow it to work fully. And the event that caused psychological trauma remains unprocessed or is not processed to the end. Repetitive eye movements magically adjust the work of this system and mechanically force the psyche to process old information. After this procedure, memories gradually fade, acquiring a neutral color.

Since a person produces similar rapid eye movements only in sleep (during the REM phase), it is assumed that it is this mechanism that reproduces the EMDR method in reality. The decoding of the reason can be any, the only important thing is that it really works.

Where apply

Most often, the DPDH method is used to recover from participation in hostilities, after violence, that is, for treatment. I also often recommend using this type of psychotherapeutic effect to recover from physical injuries, to combat phobias, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Russian doctor DPDH Kovalev recommends literature and videos. This allows for mild disorders to conduct sessions at home. However, F. Shapiro herself strongly did not recommend conducting EMDR sessions on her own and considered it necessary to have a professional psychotherapist or psychologist present.

Advantages of the method

Speed ​​is one of the main advantages. Usually the number of sessions can be from 1 to 2 (in simple cases) to 6-16 (for severe and neglected situations). Note that for the treatment of PTSD during sessions of conventional psychotherapy, it is necessary to visit a doctor twice a week for at least 6 months, with the possible prescription of medications.

The next plus is the lack of medication. There are no risks. In the worst case, the method simply will not bring results.

No patient resistance. Very often, the doctor has to "dig" for a long time to get to the bottom of the problem in ordinary sessions. If you use the DPDH method, the decoding of the therapist is practically not required. During the control of eye movements, the client is either silent and only mentally lives the situation, or answers questions more relaxed and truthful, since part of the consciousness is occupied. Therefore, the patient does not have resistance and fear of a negative assessment by the psychotherapist.

Another plus is the ability to conduct EMDR sessions on your own or with the help of friends and relatives.

Safety

This is not hypnosis, the method does not affect the psyche in any way. Since the client is fully conscious and under the additional control of the doctor, something cannot easily go wrong. The patient can always stop the session if he is not ready to experience the events again today. And the therapist will definitely notice if the level of anxiety is too high, and will help to work on yourself more efficiently and quickly.

The whole procedure is carried out according to the protocol, it is perfected and standardized by leading experts in the field. This provides additional security and guarantees the result.

dpdg on your own

Before starting a session at home without the help of a specialist, you must:

• create an atmosphere - remove all unnecessary and tune in to dedicate these 30-90 minutes to yourself;
• find a special video for working out eye movements (it’s more convenient if it’s just a dot moving along a certain amplitude on a dark screen);
• before starting work, you need to remember in detail or imagine a situation, a person, fear or pain - everything that worries you today.

You can then turn on the video and, throughout the session, carefully follow the point on the screen / pointer / cap of the pen with your eyes, without moving your head. Think about an exciting situation, mentally ask yourself questions and look for answers, get angry if you want to, try to understand what really happened and that now it does not threaten in any way, determine what goals are today and what needs to be done tomorrow to achieve them.

DPDG on your own is not so difficult. And although this technique is still practically not used in our country and is not even included in the standards for the treatment of PTSD, the experience of doctors in Israel, the USA, Great Britain, numerous studies using magnetic resonance imaging prove its effectiveness and safety even for home use.

Today I want to bring to your attention an amazing computer program that will help you get rid of many negative experiences and memories with the help of a set of simple visual exercises.

Yes, yes, that's right: by doing visual exercises, you are freeing yourself from many dramatic incidents from your past. Fears disappear, painful memories leave, sad feelings dissipate, resentment melts, painful emotions disappear. It's amazing, isn't it?! Sit back and get ready to listen - you will find a story about how it all works, how it helps us.

This story began in 1987, when the American psychotherapist Francine Shapiro, walking in the park, found that some thoughts that were disturbing her at that moment suddenly disappeared as if by themselves, and without any conscious effort on her part. But the most surprising thing was that when Francine returned to these thoughts, they no longer had such a negative effect on her as they had a few minutes ago.

Francine Shapiro

And this discovery made such a strong impression on her that she completely focused on her feelings, on what was happening, trying to find an explanation for this magical change in her mind.

“I noticed,” writes Shapiro, “that when disturbing thoughts arose, my eyes spontaneously began to move from side to side and up and down diagonally. Then the disturbing thoughts disappeared, and when I deliberately tried to remember them, the negative charge inherent in these thoughts, turned out to be greatly reduced.

Noticing this, I began to move my eyes intentionally, focusing on various unpleasant thoughts and memories. I noticed that all these thoughts disappeared and lost their negative emotional coloring.

So, Shapiro made an interesting discovery that suggested to her that there is some obvious connection between eye movements and the intensity of negative experiences, and after a long theoretical and experimental study, she was put forward a hypothesis that could explain the reason for the rapid release from negative emotions. And I would like emphasize that this hypothesis is in line with modern provisions on human mental activity, and is consistent with the main schools and theories in psychology: biochemical, behavioral, psychodynamic, etc.

According to modern concepts, the brain consists of countless individual neurons (units of mind and memory, if you like). These neurons are connected to each other in chains, neural plexuses. These plexuses are also connected to each other, and, in general, all these connections and interconnections give rise to a neural network.

Neural circuits perform a wide variety of tasks: like shelves in a closet where you store certain things, neural circuits also store some important information - and in one chain, for example, the memory of first love is stored, in another - a memorized poem, in the third - the ability to add numbers, and so on.

If you watched the movie "Dreamcatcher", then remember such an episode where our subconscious mind is presented as a huge library. This is an interesting, but not very plausible comparison: our neural network is much more complex than any library, and if we imagine this network as a library, then books must interact with each other. For neural circuits are dynamically connected with each other. And, for example, the neural circuit of our first love is connected to another circuit about the first sexual experience. It is also connected with the chain about the first date, with the chain about the first awareness of one's feelings.

Hundreds, thousands, millions of different combinations and combinations. The more connections between neural circuits, the more flexible the brain works, the more resources are turned on to solve a particular problem. And, on the contrary, the fewer connections a chain has, the more difficult it is to interact with it.

If a neural chain is some kind of our problem, and this chain does not have a sufficient number of neural connections, then this problem will be very difficult to solve, because all our experience, all our skills, experiences and abilities are not used in solving this problem.

F. Shapiro's method (Eye Movement Desensitization and Trauma Processing, or EMDR) is based on the assumption that traumatic events lead to the emergence of autonomous isolated neural chains of traumatic experience in the neural network. On the way between the traumatic chain and other parts of the neural network, a barrier is formed that prevents not only the "exchange of experience" between them, but also contact with them in general.

And to be more precise, it looks like this: "started", the chain forms a series of contact chains, or associative channels, through which it receives meaningful information. And this chain is rigidly focused on receiving only those stimuli that restimulate it. Any other potential contact (suppose it is a chain with useful experience, that - "there is a blessing in disguise") is fundamentally blocked.

Let's consider this with an example. Let's say some woman experienced a drama, her loved one left her. A traumatic neural chain appears in the neural network, and, on the one hand, it “sticks” to all other chains that activate its work, and, on the other hand, it is delimited, isolated by a biochemical barrier on the way to the formation of connections with other parts of neural experience.

And this neural chain of trauma begins to work like a nipple, strictly in one direction: everything that reminds her of the trauma, she easily misses, and everything that can alleviate her suffering is hindered.

As a result, for a long time this "knot" of trauma is subjected to constant restimulation. The house, photographs, dishes, conversations of relatives, bed, some certain hours of the day, things, TV, furniture, the way to work - everything constantly reminds her of what happened, memories are constantly “piling up”, constantly the same painful thoughts and emotions. And at the same time, everything that is “in the other direction” does not lead to a result: calming loved ones only provokes tears, the psychotherapist’s speeches do not help in any way, sedative drugs cause disgust, time “does not heal”, it’s sickening to look at everything and everyone.

And all this happens because the traumatic experience is alienated from the resources of the neural network, but is selectively connected only to those areas (associative channels) that enhance its reactivity. That is why sometimes a person experiencing a drama is said to "cling to his grief." But, in fact, he is not to blame for anything, and he himself suffers the most from this. He suffers much more than he could suffer if all parts of the experience of the neural network were fully included in his emotional state.

A reasonable question arises: if such an organization of neural traumatic experience occurs without any conscious (and even unconscious) participation of a person, and is unjustifiably one-sided and harmful, then why did nature create this mechanism? What is the meaning of it? After all, there is no benefit, but only harmful harm. And why is such meanness invented in our body?!

And the meaning, my friends, is very, very simple. The thing is that such an organization is entirely focused on the bodily experience of existence. In the experience of any creature, a single traumatic experience (bodily injury of any origin) must be remembered by him for the rest of his animal life in order to be guaranteed to avoid it when repeated.

Learning should always be the first time, - once and forever. And if, for example, a young fox pricks itself on the needles of a hedgehog, then it will no longer fit the hedgehog. A neural chain "prickly hedgehog" appears, which works strictly in one direction: and, on the one hand, our little fox will now never forget about the dangers of hedgehogs, and, on the other hand, he will never have a theory that "the hedgehog is a bird proud", and the like. The hedgehog is an enemy, a danger, period. And no options.

Alas, as the psychological component of life becomes more complex (to a level where the psychological can dominate over the bodily, will over reflex, and logic over instinct), the process of formation of harmful traumatic neural "sores" (but now these are more often not physical injuries, but psychological ones) nothing has changed.

And if a negative experience happened, then the principle of the formation of a neural chain is no different from a fox's reaction to a hedgehog. The only difference is that the fox cub has a reaction only at the moment when the hedgehog is present in its field of vision. The only difference is that in humans, the associative channels that restimulate a painful chain are hundreds and thousands of times more perfect and diverse than in any animal, and the restimulations themselves after a traumatic event become landslide, obsessive and chronic.

F. Shapiro discovered that spontaneous (or forced) eye movements break the barriers between "bad" neural experience and the rest of the neural network. And by addressing various parts of his neural (and, in particular, sensory) experience, a person "connects" the traumatic chain to the general neural network, which gives very quick relief.

For now, in the process of his experience of trauma, sources of saving information are connected, which were previously tightly isolated.

That is why, as Shapiro writes, when any disturbing thoughts are deliberately repeated, it is found that they no longer have the negative power that they had before.

It is noteworthy that there is one type of mental activity when the method of EMDR proposed by Shapiro works, as it were, on its own: this is sleep and dreaming. In sleep, there is a repetitive phase of rapid eye movement (REM), when the sleeping eyeballs begin to literally "rush" from side to side. As soon as this happens (and this happens several times in one dream), a person sees a dream one hundred percent. It can be assumed that processes similar to EMDR occur in sleep: healing, resource experiences of other parts of the neural network join the traumatic experience. Thus, we can say that sleep is a spontaneous form of psychological self-healing.

Unfortunately, just as spontaneous is the formation of rigid patterns of negative experience, expressed in the fact that a traumatic experience of any kind is accompanied by a direction of gaze to one point. And it doesn’t matter where this point is, to the right or to the left, up or down, diagonally up or down, but what matters is that our gaze again and again returns to this starting point, and from this our experience is aggravated. But if, as Shapiro suggested, one is forced to look to any other point, then the power of negative experience immediately weakens.

But this is not the most important thing. For a person, no matter what state he is in, cannot think about the same thing all the time, it is impossible. One way or another, he is distracted, something distracts him, he changes his point of view and temporarily frees himself from negative emotions.

But as soon as the external stimulus weakens, the thoughts (and the look) immediately return to their original position, like a roly-poly doll. This means that a simple switch will not be enough, more subtle work is needed: to translate a person’s gaze, while maintaining his thoughts and feelings about a negative experience. And if a certain direction of gaze is a certain concentration of experience, then by forcing a person to think in any other direction of gaze, we give him a chance to use unused resources that were blocked by the traumatic chain.

EMDR therapy

This is how the EMDR method appeared - desensitization and processing of injuries with eye movements. And if you are interested in this method, you can read Shapiro's book about it, the book is called: "Psychotherapy of emotional trauma with the help of eye movements." This book was published by the Klass publishing house, and, if desired, it can be found. This is a very serious and detailed work describing the basic principles, protocols and procedures of the GRDP.

And today we also have at our disposal a special computer program for EMDR called "Eye Movement Integrator", developed (according to the Francis Shapiro method) by psychologist Natalia Doroshenko.

Eye Movement Integrator

The program will be of interest, first of all, to practicing psychotherapists and doctors, heads of medical institutions, rehabilitation centers for post-traumatic syndromes (Chechen, Afghan), and all those who, on duty, have to work with traumatic experiences of different "nature" and gravity.

The Eye Movement Integrator program consists of two parts: an introductory block, where you will receive instructions for working with the program, and a therapeutic block, where the traumatic experience is processed.

At the initial stage, an introductory part will be necessary for familiarization, and I strongly recommend that you read the entire course of instructions from beginning to end, and answer all the questions posed by the program. And after the introductory part is over, and you are completely ready to do the exercises, the program will smoothly take you to the beginning of the first session.

Entering your therapeutic field, you will see, as it were, the night sky and points of stars moving on it. At the bottom of the screen, where you're used to seeing the Control Panel button and the Start button, you'll find a series of buttons to help you set up your therapy session.

Frame setting

Briefly, the essence of the therapeutic process can be expressed as follows: you remember your problem (you will be instructed in more detail about this in the introductory part), and then mentally place it inside the geometric figure you have chosen.

Control Panel

There are no recipes as to which figure is best to choose for a session: your intuition itself will tell you which figure is best suited for solving a particular problem.

Once the shape is selected, it will appear in the center of the screen. Now you can further customize it to your liking. First, you can change the width of the border around the shape. Secondly, you can change the fill color of the selected shape, and increase or decrease the size of the shape itself.

After all preparations for the session are completed, we can begin our first healing session.

So, we will start: inside the selected figure we place our problem, and start our session (the "Session Selection" button on the panel). And after that, for 15 minutes it remains for us to follow the movements of the chosen figure with our eyes, mentally keeping our problem inside it. Forget everything, arrange everything so that you won't be disturbed for at least one hour, and focus completely on this process.

moving figure

There are four sessions in total, each of them will make the figure move in a certain sequence.

For example, in the first session, the shape will move from left to right and right to left. In the second session, it will move away from you, then approach. Each of the EMDR sessions uses unused brain resources, with each minute of the session, more and more friend neurons will come to your aid.

Already after the first exercise, you will be able to detect significant changes in your feelings, in your experiences, in your thoughts and feelings.

At the end of each session, the program will prompt you to comprehend all the changes that were BEFORE the session began, and which became AFTER.

Download program

You can download "Integrator" in the catalog of computer programs.

Related articles Psychological tests Psycholinguistic programs

A simple but quite effective technique by Francine Shapiro - the EMDH method (desensitization through eye movement), initially worked well in the psychotherapy of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes, the EMDR technique is used on its own as a method of erasing emotional memories that bring mental suffering to a person.

As can be seen from the figure, the method of EMDR, desensitization and processing of psychotrauma by eye movement, resembles the principles of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), where each eye movement (direction of gaze) is directly related to the human representational systems (vision, hearing, kinesthetics). However, the Shapiro method (DPG) does not focus on human sensors (sense organs).

How to use the EMDR method on your own to process psychotrauma, severe stress from the past

Serious stresses experienced in the past, emotional experiences, psychotraumas, such as, for example, rape, military operations, natural disasters, accidents and catastrophes, leave a deep mark on the human psyche. The EMDR method will help you erase emotional, traumatic memories on your own, processing them through eye movement into something neutral, or even positive.

EMPG is used independently in those cases when you are clearly aware that the cause of your current (here and now) experiences, reactions to stress, fears and phobias .., other neurotic states is a psychotrauma, experienced severe stress from the past.

Using the DPG technique on your own - step by step instructions

So, to use the DPG technique on your own, you need to sit comfortably in front of a free wall. You can turn on relaxing music (see music therapy), the lighting should not be bright, for better relaxation, you can take a little deep breath in your stomach.

Take a small flashlight or laser pointer with your fingers, which you will drive along the wall opposite.
Prepare in advance your traumatic memory that you want to process through eye movement (“hang” in trauma, in order to avoid activating strong experiences, not yet, just know what you will work with).

There will be three steps in total, performing which you will be able to independently process your psycho-traumatic events from the past, thereby improving your psycho-emotional state in the present.

1. step: Relaxing and pointing a light pointer (flashlight) at the wall opposite, with a slight movement of one fingers (not the whole hand), you slowly move the beam along the wall to the left and right (direct gaze), fix your eyes on the light spot and move them together with the beam - left and right .

   Your gaze is focused on the spot of light - this is the foreground. At the same time, try to see in the background, looking as if through a wall, what happened to you in the past. At the same time, processing psychotraumatic information, imagining something neutral or positive in fantasy.

   Keep doing EMDR for 3-5-10 minutes until you feel that the negative past is gradually dissipating, turning into something normal.

   Take a sharp deep breath in and out, and look around the room, alternately focusing your attention on different objects. Rate your emotional state on a 100% scale: 0 - no negative emotion at all - 100% - strong emotion.

   You can move on to the next step after rest, or the next day, depending on your energy and emotionality.

2. step: You do everything the same, only the movement of the flashlight and with it the eyes - in the form of a recumbent figure eight (the sign of infinity).
3. step: The same EMDR technique, but the eye movements are now in a circle (counterclockwise).

Since you will be applying the eye movement desensitization method on your own, it may not be possible to completely process the trauma and erase negative emotional memories the first time. Of course, there will be progress, but for a complete processing of stress from the past, it is worth repeating the EMPG technique one more time.

Also, you can ask a loved one to direct the beam of a flashlight for you, being behind you, out of sight, thereby freeing you from unnecessary psychoenergetic costs.

Attention! If you have several psychological traumas in the past, then before processing emotions, you need to make a list of problems in the form of a hierarchy. And start working with the simplest stressful situations imprinted in the psyche.

1987. Experiencing a difficult period in her life (cancer, divorce from her husband), American psychologist Francine Shapiro (Francine Shapiro) experienced real suffering: she was tormented by obsessive fears and nightmares. One day, while walking in the park, she noticed that quick eye movements from left to right relieved her condition. She continued the research, which confirmed: the method helps with post-traumatic stress. Shapiro completed her thesis on EMDH and in 2002 received the Sigmund Freud Prize, the most prestigious award in the field of psychotherapy.

Definition

EMDR is a psychotherapeutic technique that is used in the treatment of emotional trauma. It is designed primarily for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction syndrome or depression caused by the loss of a loved one. At the moment of injury (accident, terrorist attack, natural disaster, physical or moral violence), the human brain remembers all the details related to this event. Memories of them continue to haunt him, unnerving him. The EMDR method helps to improve the client's condition, allowing you to identify the feelings and images associated with the painful experience of trauma, and change the perception of this event.

Operating principle

The EMDR method is based on the neurological concept of psychological trauma and allows you to speed up healing with a word. A traumatic event blocks the processes of self-regulation of the psyche: images, sounds or bodily sensations associated with a painful experience seem to “get stuck” in it, so that a person experiences horror, pain, fear and helplessness again and again. Eye movement helps to synchronize the rhythms of the cerebral hemispheres. And eye movements from side to side cause alternate activation of the hemispheres and synchronous processing of information. The processes of natural self-regulation are restored, and the brain completes its work on its own.

Progress

After explaining the plan of action to the client, the therapist suggests that he first think about something good. Next, a “target” is selected: some event from the past that haunts him, or a current situation that serves as a subject of concern (phobias or anxiety attacks). Focusing on the painful situation, the client focuses on the therapist's hand moving from left to right. During each session, he must follow 15 such rhythmic movements, wide and precise (the span is about 1 m). In the pauses between exercises, you can talk about this event and assess the intensity of the emotion experienced about it. Classes are held until the client notes a decrease in the severity of the experience. During the procedure, the specialist also helps to form new, positive images instead of those that were associated with the injury. The memory of the trauma does not disappear, but it stops hurting the person.

Indications for use

For those who experience severe post-traumatic stress (after a terrorist attack, violence or disaster), as well as in the case when an event in the past left a painful memory. This technique can also help with disorders such as drug addiction, anorexia or depression. Contraindications: severe mental conditions, some diseases of the heart and eyes.

How long? What is the price?

EMDR is often used in combination with other methods and helps to de-stress and speed up the healing process. EMDR is not used at the first meeting with the client: first, an understanding of the history of the disease and the nature of the symptoms must be obtained. Sometimes one session of DPDH is enough. The session lasts 1 hour and costs from 1500 rubles

Ecology of life. Psychology: A simple but quite effective technique, Francine Shapiro's EMDR method (desensitization through eye movement), initially worked well in the psychotherapy of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes, the EMDR technique is used on its own as a method of erasing emotional memories that bring mental suffering to a person.

Erase negative emotional memories

EMDR (EMDR) is a quick and painless method of psychological help, thanks to which you can simply and reliably get rid of fears, anxiety, the effects of trauma and a negative attitude towards life. The effectiveness of EMDR has been scientifically proven: through clinical studies and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) studies.

The EMDR method is based on the idea of ​​bilateral stimulation:

• The movements of the eyeballs at a certain pace and according to a certain pattern stimulate the alternate work of different hemispheres of the brain.
• Rapid eye movements cause one or the other hemisphere to “turn on”.
• Such alternate work has a positive effect on the emotional state, eliminating and reducing the negative impact of traumatic events, fears and experiences.

The abbreviation EMDR stands for "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing". The name of the EMDR method is translated into Russian as “desensitization with the help of eye movements and reprocessing”, or briefly - “DPG”.

What is DPG?

Like many other remarkable scientific discoveries, EMDR (EMDR) was discovered by accident. Clinical psychologist Francine Shapiro (USA) had a hard time with the consequences of chemotherapy: not only her body suffered, but also her soul. The American was very nervous, worried and, of course, afraid. However, Frances noticed that her nervousness was significantly reduced, and her fear receded if she moved her eyeballs in a certain order. The psychologist became interested in this phenomenon and began to study it carefully.

In the course of scientific research, scientists explained the phenomenon of the positive psychological impact of special eye movements using the model of adaptive information processing.

What is this model?

Suppose you inadvertently touched a hot frying pan. It's painful and unpleasant. The memory of this event should do you good: you will become more accurate, prudent, more careful. Normally, this is adaptive, correct processing of information. Stress, malaise and other factors reduce our adaptability, and then the information is assimilated non-adaptive. For example, we begin to panic fear of all pans, instead of adjusting our behavior based on experience.

Memory is a collection of neural connections. It is believed that the memory of a traumatic event can be “encapsulated”: neurons form a capsule, and outside this capsule they do not interact. If the memory has been encapsulated, the slightest reminder of the traumatic event is enough to elicit a powerful, often destructive emotional response. Such a reminder is called a “trigger,” a trigger that brings us back to our original experience of pain, fear, and disgust.

Let's take another example. It was raining, it was slippery, the man was in a hurry, as a result he slipped and fell, breaking his leg. The fracture has long and successfully healed, but as soon as it rains, a wave of experiences rolls over a person: fear, severe pain, despair and a sense of helplessness. Perhaps due to non-adaptive processing of information, a neural capsule of the memory of the fracture was formed, and the rain became a “trigger” that triggered a strong emotional reaction.

Specially organized eye movements provide safe bilateral stimulation of the work of the cerebral hemispheres, due to which the neural memory capsule is destroyed, which contains information about a tragic event or a difficult experience. The neural memory capsule, for simplicity, can be compared to a spasm in the muscles. EMDR helps to break down this neural capsule, just as a good professional massage helps to relax a muscle that has been spasmed. EMDR (EMDR)- this is a kind of wellness "massage for the soul", removing pain and discomfort.

Simple but quite effective Francine Shapiro technique - DPG method(desensitization through eye movement), initially worked well in the psychotherapy of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes, the EMDR technique is used on its own as a method of erasing emotional memories that bring mental suffering to a person.

As can be seen from the figure, the method of EMDR, desensitization and processing of psychotrauma by eye movement, resembles the principles of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), where each eye movement (direction of gaze) is directly related to the human representational systems (vision, hearing, kinesthetics). However, the Shapiro method (DPG) does not focus on human sensors (sense organs).

How to use the EMDR method on your own to process psychotrauma, severe stress from the past

Serious stresses experienced in the past, emotional experiences, psychotraumas, such as, for example, rape, military operations, natural disasters, accidents and catastrophes, leave a deep imprint in the human psyche.

The EMDR method will help you erase emotional, psycho-traumatic memories on your own, processing them through eye movement into something neutral, or even positive.

EMPG is used independently in those cases when you are clearly aware that the cause of your current (here and now) experiences, reactions to stress, fears and phobias .., other neurotic states is a psychotrauma, experienced severe stress from the past.

Using the DPG technique on your own - step by step instructions

So, to use the DPG technique on your own, you need to sit comfortably in front of a free wall. You can turn on relaxing music, the lighting should not be bright, for better relaxation, you can take a little deep breath in your stomach.

Take a small flashlight or laser pointer with your fingers, which you will drive along the wall opposite.

Prepare in advance your traumatic memory that you want to process through the movement of the eyes (“hang” in a psychotrauma, in order to avoid the activation of strong experiences, until you need it, just know what you will be working with).

In total, there will be three steps of EMPG, by performing which you will be able to independently process your psycho-traumatic events from the past, thereby improving your psycho-emotional state in the present.

1 step: Relaxing and pointing a light pointer (flashlight) at the opposite wall, with a slight movement of some fingers (not the whole hand), you slowly move the beam along the wall to the left and right (look straight), fix your eyes on the light spot and move them together with the beam - left and right .

Your gaze is focused on the light spot - this is the foreground. At the same time, try to see in the background, looking as if through a wall, what happened to you in the past. At the same time, processing psychotraumatic information, imagining something neutral or positive in fantasy.

Continue doing EMDR for 3-5-10 minutes until you feel that the negative past is gradually dissipating turning into something normal.

Take a sharp deep breath in and out, and look around the room, alternately focusing your attention on different objects. Rate your emotional state on a 100% scale: 0 - no negative emotion at all - 100% - strong emotion.

You can move on to the next step after rest, or the next day - depending on your energy and emotionality.

2 step: You do everything the same, only the movement of the flashlight and with it the eyes - in the form of a recumbent figure eight (the sign of infinity).

3 step: The same EMDR technique, but the eye movements are now in a circle (counterclockwise).

Since you will be applying the eye movement desensitization method on your own, it may not be possible to completely process the trauma and erase negative emotional memories the first time. Of course, there will be progress, but for a complete processing of stress from the past, it is worth repeating the EMPG technique one more time.

Also, you can ask a loved one to direct a flashlight beam for you, being behind you, out of sight, thereby freeing you from unnecessary psychoenergetic costs.

Attention! If you have several psychological traumas in the past, then before processing emotions, you need to make a list of problems in the form of a hierarchy. And start working with the simplest stressful situations imprinted in the psyche. published