EMDR was discovered by chance in 1987. During a walk in the park, the American clinical psychologist Dr Francine Shapiro noticed that the disturbance caused by her negative thoughts lessened when she moved her eyes back and forth between the trees.
From observation to method
Following this experience, Shapiro tested the effect of deliberate eye movements on herself while concentrating on negative thoughts. The positive changes she observed led her to extend the experiments to friends and acquaintances, who were instructed to focus on negative thoughts and the effects associated with them while following the movements of Shapiro’s fingers with their eyes.
Encouraged by these results, she developed a standard procedure which she called EMD (Eye Movement Desensitisation), initially assuming it was a variant of Systematic Desensitisation, the established behavioural therapy technique.
The first study, 1987–1989
At the end of 1987, Shapiro tested the efficacy of EMD in an empirical study with patients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The results were published in 1989 in the Journal of Traumatic Stress and showed a significant decrease in distress among those receiving the treatment compared with the control group.
From EMD to EMDR
During further research, Shapiro observed clear differences between her treatment and the behavioural therapy approach. Between 1987 and 1991 she developed EMD in California into what is now the EMDR method, and first employed it in 1989 in therapeutic work with war trauma victims.
Today EMDR is understood as a dynamic process drawing on elements of both psychodynamic and behavioural therapy. How it works in practice is set out under how EMDR works; a general introduction is available under what EMDR is. Shapiro’s own writings and further reading are listed in our EMDR literature.
