Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is the work of Francine Shapiro, founded in 1987 and since then widely researched and implemented in the healing of adverse memories. The theory behind EMDR rests in the bilateral tapping that generally calms the body down as an individual replays a distressing event either silently or verbally. EMDR is a specific protocol that can be integrated into psychotherapy to relax the body from everyday stressful situations to complex stress brought on by conditions outside of one’s control. Treatment time with EMDR is generally shorter than average psychotherapy.
When our bodies get overly excited due to shock or excessive emotional strain our parasympathetic nervous system, which aids in our body’s automatic functioning ie. digestion, heart and breathing, is usually disrupted. These functions are primarily influenced by the tenth of the twelfth cranial nerve, the vagus nerve. In treating this disruption, we have naturally gone for a walk ie. storm out of a room, taken a shower, or have taken deep breaths and count to 10. In our integrative psychotherapy, we use bilateral stimulation, a gentle tapping on either side of the body, that provides relaxation to the nerve while discussing the event that made you ‘storm out the room’.
Life’s naturally occurring emotional strains stop up our automatic parasympathetic functioning – too much to handle – we shut down! Crash, burnout, overwhelmed, we go for massages, and acupuncture and spa treatments to feel better – a ‘stress-filled’ knot in the shoulder is relieved after a few treatments. Think of our integrative psychotherapy as a spa treatment for the nervous system; or as it occurs, this great life event that appears as a boulder, causing suffering and that inhibits the flow of tao, becomes a pebble over time.
Eugene T. Gendlin’s work reflects what is known as the Philosophy of the Implicit also known as Focusing. Unlike other forms of psychotherapy this philosophy touches on the universal felt sense of something that is implied in each of us regardless of race, class or creed. With the felt sense of the implicit someone can focus on their own or with a companion, usually sensing the quality of an external experience from an internal space. This phenomenological experience can be experienced through six basic steps highlighted by Gendlin.
Traditionally, ‘mindfulness’ carries with it a universal (spiritual) connotation. Not as something that is “over there” but something that is “in here” within – that one action impacts the flow and the action of another, as does the inaction. A certain conscientiousness, that “I’m not alone, and what I do and don’t do” can either harm, help or have a passive impact on others around me. This teaching of perennial mindfulness integrates the “spiritual” or the universality of our co-existence.
Cassava Bread, Inc.
is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Donations to
CBI are tax-exempt.
EIN# 85-1724645
Cassava Bread, Inc.
is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Donations to
CBI are tax-exempt.
EIN# 85-1724645
