The EMDR method is best used for the retrieval of memories that are only partly repressed, but cause undue distress in daily life. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is guided eye movement from side to side while the subject thinks about a specific traumatic experience EMDR brings the inaccessible details of the experience to your consciousness. In addition, the operating mode allows the subject to resolve the old experience and cancel its traumatic nature.

To resolve any severe trauma that was repressed, the subject has to process the information in full consciousness and reexperience the trauma. The mental pain and reaction are as strong or even stronger than they were during the original experience. EMDR does not reduce the degree of the affective experience. EMDR is typically done with the assistance of a therapist.

EMDR can be used for other purposes than just simple retrieval of memories or repressed traumas. Even the retrieval of everyday memories can be helped by employing EMDR. This method can also facilitate merging of personalities in a person with multiple personality. The technique is applied to every personality individually, and this approach weakens the dissociative barriers.

Both lay people and professionals have been wondering whether EMDR can produce distorted or false memories that sometimes happens in hypnosis. Physiology of the brain indicates that the EMDR technique does not do anything extraordinary to the mind. We enter this operating mode spontaneously during many everyday tasks. The mode is not the prevalent operating mode of the brain, but is absolutely normal. Most importantly, this mode exists in full consciousness. When in this mode, the brain retrieves the memories as they are and without additional distortion. The mode only facilitates memory recovery and does not affect the original information.

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