Do-It-Yourself Eye Movement Techniques for Emotional Healing

In the 5th (?how to do it? DIY) chapter, we are introduced to the technique itself in a step-by-step fashion, the reader being led through a series of stages with clearly marked progression or repeat indicants given at each stage. One progression (perhaps surprising to the reader, especially given Friedberg's chosen title) is the suggestion that the use of oscillatory eye movements be abandoned, and replaced instead by finger movements. Indeed, the latter would appear to be Friedberg's preferred method of therapeutic interaction with his own clients (though he still calls it EMT?). This instead uses a distractive flip-flop bimanual tapping his clients' hands or shoulders whilst having them silently ponder on questions reminiscent of the therapy school?s of thought derived from Roget or Ellis.

The latter half of the volume is exclusively devoted to providing case studies and extracts of actual therapy sessions from the author?s own clinical archives. Each of these later chapters deal with specific concerns (phobia, panic, chronic pain, personal and social anxieties) with accompanying procedures being retold amidst success stories, mostly with a positive outcome for the client. The most remarkable and repeated claim, however, is not for EMT providing relief across such a wide range of conditions, but in its speed of efficacy -- often within a single session, without requiring repeated administration.

For those trying to help manage, or those actually suffering from the effects of pre-clinical emotional stress conditions, EMT remains worthy of investigation. I would suggest that EMT (albeit received in the form of oscillatory eye movements or bimanual tapping) might at the very least prove a good vehicle in actively disrupting recurrent ruminations and the often-repeated intrusions into ongoing thought processes familiar to the sufferer of emotional stress. Whether Friedberg?s EMT does any more than merely interrupt worrisome replays by distraction (think here of your own experience of trying to get rid of a tune that keeps ?going around in your head?), his own case archive would seem to suggest a high degree of success with the technique(s) as illustrated in this volume. Add it to the therapy bookshelf between Rational Emotive Therapy and Biofeedback
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April 22, 2002