When a caregiver restrains an individual with special needs or autism, their actions aren’t always inherently malevolent. However, individuals with special needs or sensory processing difficulties and autism can have a traumatizing experience with being restrained.

EDMR can help significantly with unpacking and working through trauma. The repetitive patterns of EDMR can be beneficial for individuals with such trauma, as it is a safe and effective way to help individuals with limited social abilities and sensory processing difficulties. EDMR has been correlated with decreasing stress levels for individuals with special needs and autism.

What is EDMR?

EDMR stands for “eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.” EDMR therapy is a form of psychotherapy to help treat individuals with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. It was invented by Francine Shapiro. Shapiro noticed that, when recalling traumatic events, her eyes would move back and forth. She figured this was the body’s physical response to processing emotional stressors.

Unlike talk-based therapy, EDMR is a therapy that involves activities as well as talking and discussion. Oftentimes, when a traumatic experience happens to an individual, the brain’s way of processing those emotions happens in their dreams.

EDMR is best described by Matthew Smith, when he states:

If your body experiences some sort of traumatic event such as the events of war, abuse, home invasion or loss of a loved one, it typically processes these events during your dream states. When the body enters REM sleep, your brain begins processing the events of the day, impressing certain memories, while shedding ‘less important’ ones.

Like a lot of things that regard the brain and emotional trauma, we’re not fully certain how it works. However, there is a direct correlation with the betterment of the patient and the effectiveness of the treatment regarding EDMR.

What an EDMR therapy session might look like

EDMR is an eight-phase process. The phases of EDMR can be quite complicated, so here’s a short, abbreviated list. If you want to know the full eight steps and what they entail, click here.

1. History of individual
2. Preparation of techniques to use
3. Assessment
4. Desensitization
5. Installation
6. Body scan
7. Closure
8. Processing
9. Re-evaluation

According to WebMD an EDMR therapy session will often look like this:

Your therapist will move his or her fingers back and forth in front of your face and ask you to follow these hand motions with your eyes. At the same time, the EMDR therapist will have you recall a disturbing event. This will include the emotions and body sensations that go along with it.

EDMR works to engage the body’s natural physical responses to emotional trauma. By doing this, the body is able to process emotional trauma in a natural way without having to do so in dreams.

EDMR also works to restore peaceful deep REM sleep. REM is the deepest state of the sleep cycle and is usually responsible for dreaming. EDMR works to help restore a peaceful REM cycle. While scientists aren’t completely certain of the ins and outs, it’s likely that EDMR works by helping the brain process trauma while awake instead of dreaming.

Going forward

EDMR is a great way to help anyone, not just individuals with special needs, unpack trauma and stressors. If you believe that EDMR is something that you or your loved one with special needs would benefit from, you can get a referral for a therapist from your primary care physician, or simply search for it on Psychology Today.