In addition, during the evaluation phase, the person identifies the negative emotions (fear, anger) and physical sensations (tightness in the stomach, cold hands) that he associates with the goal. The customer also rates the belief negative, but uses a different scale called the subjective units of disturbance (SUD) scale. This chapter describes the procedure steps in the evaluation phase of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), with a focus on obtaining the parts of therapy with young children. The evaluation phase of EMDR therapy includes specific procedural steps.
These steps include guiding the customer through target identification, imaging, distilling the core belief scheme, including negative cognition (NC) and positive cognition (PC), assessing cognition validity (VoC) on a 7-point scale, detecting associated emotion, and measuring subjective units of disturbance (SUD) and emotion, and finally localize bodily sensations. Ongoing symptom assessment is part of EMDR therapy and guides the treatment process. There are several techniques for target identification, as taught during EMDR therapy training. Goal mapping for EMDR therapy is a technique used to organize information collected when preparing to process a client's problems with EMDR therapy.
These four phases are explained in these terms: Assessment, desensitization, installation and body scanning. In phases three through six, a target is identified and processed using EMDR therapy procedures. During this phase of EMDR therapy, a positive belief (“You're safe now) can be introduced to help counter negative emotions caused by trauma. All eight phases contribute to the overall effect of EMDR therapy; however, not all phases can be used in an EMDR therapy session.
Eye movements comprise only a small part of a larger process that EMDR experts, such as Francine Shapiro, have divided into eight different phases. As a natural result of the EMDR phases, the client's thoughts, feelings and behavior are indicators of emotional health and resolution, all without talking in detail or doing the homework used in other therapies. The sixth phase of EMDR is the body scan, in which clients are asked to observe their physical response while thinking about the incident and positive cognition, and identify any residual somatic distress. Shapiro built this therapy in a very structured way and has explained the different phases of EMDR, which helps therapists to advance this therapy in a very systematic way.
EMDR is an eight-phase treatment method used to help combat traumatic experiences and other mental health disorders.
