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FAIRBANKS — A trauma treatment that looks like a mix between an eye exam and a counseling session is becoming more accessible for soldiers in the Fairbanks area.
When undergoing EMDR, a patient focuses on a negative thought triggered by a traumatic experience while following a therapist’s finger or other stimulus across his or her field of vision. Some therapists use sound or touch instead of vision to stimulate the attention of the patient.
The name of the therapy stands for eye movement desensitization reprocessing. It was developed in 1989 by California psychologist Francine Shapiro. Shapiro began developing the therapy after making the chance observation that eye movements appeared to decrease her negative reaction to distressing memories, according to her EMDR website.
The mechanism for why EMDR works isn’t completely understood. In a 2012 New York Times article, Shapiro said it may be related to the rapid eye movements associated with deep sleep. However, she said like many psychological treatments, it’s not unusual for scientists not to understand why it works.
“Many questions remain about the underlying mechanism for the effects of E.M.D.R. This is not a unique situation, however, since the neurobiological explanation for any form of therapy, and even many pharmaceuticals, remains obscure,” she said.
Fairbanks
availability
The treatment has gotten more popular following the U.S. Department of Defense and American Psychiatric Association’s listing of the practice as an effective treatment for post traumatic stress disorder.
At Fort Wainwright, soldiers often seek out EMDR because, “it’s perceived to be less invasive” than another common treatment called prolonged exposure, said Lt. Col. Dennis Sarmiento, chief of behavioral health for medical department activity-
Alaska.
Like in prolonged exposure therapy, patients undergoing EMDR need to think about traumatic events that triggered their problems, but the patients focus on the emotions triggered by the memory more than the specific details of the memory itself, he said.
“You don’t necessarily confront the traumatic exposure,” he said. “We focus, not necessarily on the actual image or the experience. We work through the the emotions.”
Sarmiento is based at Bassett Army Community Hospital at Fort Wainwright and oversees a team of 50 mental health providers around Alaska. Until this year, EMDR wasn’t widely available for soldiers in the Army in Alaska, he said. As of last spring, three providers had the training to conduct the therapy.
That changed in July when a group of EMDR trainers from Fort Sam Houston came to Bassett for a five-day class. They trained 22 staff members through at least the initial EMDR certification. That certification will allow providers to give the therapy with supervision.
Contact staff writer Sam Friedman at 459-7545. Follow him on Twitter: @FDNMoutdoors.
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