Well not quite yet, so breathe a sigh of relief.  Your job is safe for a while!

What about five years from now?  Not so sure, as it’s quite likely, based on current developments, that there will be AI generated EMDR therapists at work in five years’ time.

As I, (Richard Worthing-Davies), wrote in the EMDR Therapy quarterly (Winter 2021), the rapid development of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is likely to be highly disruptive in health care diagnosis and delivery over the coming years. 

Dissociation is a process of emotional distancing often experienced by people undergoing a traumatic experience. It is also commonly experienced by clients during an abreaction to the trauma. This is distinct from Dissociative disorders, a much more serious condition characterised by splitting of the personality into parts - Structural Dissociation.

Changing the brain is better than prescription drugs for treating back pain.

A new clinical trial provides more evidence that a change of mindset, not prescription drugs, is key to eliminating nagging (chronic) back pain. A paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association, as reported in the London Times, showed long-standing back pain as a ‘modifiable problem of the nervous system rather than a disc, bone or muscle problem’.

Marilyn and Richard discuss the apparent confusion in the EMDR world about the EMDR, EMD, EMDR AND R-TEP protocols.

In the course of a therapeutic hour an EMDR therapist may make dozens of decisions from what to target to the appropriateness of the cognitions, the kind of BLS to use, the possibility of needing to take action to avoid client overwhelm and dissociation, and many others. The quality of the therapist’s decision making is crucial in two respects: first and foremost, the well-being of the client depends on it; as far as the therapist is concerned poor decision making may cause serious reputational and financial damage. Which brings me to the real issue that I’ve never seen mentioned in EMDR circles – the reality of decision fatigue as recently highlighted by some unusual research published in the Royal Society Open Finance.

After a lifetime of ups and downs he was committed to hospital under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. He is Horatio Clare, the bestselling author of numerous books. His essays and reviews appear on BBC radio and in the Financial Times, the Observer and the Spectator. His latest book, Heavy Light – A Journey through Madness, Mania & Healing – is now available; it’s a truly extraordinary account by one of the most brilliant travel writers of our day, of a different sort of travel - one through complete breakdown and severe mental illness.

Video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams made remote working possible as COVID-19 spread. All sort of work including therapy, supervision and training/education that took place in person moved online. This move to online working has had several consequences, which we explore in the following piece.

As reported in the Economist[i], a century of research has shown that unemployment is bad for mental health. Anxiety, depression and lower self-esteem are common afflictions connected with being out of work. But how much work is necessary for good mental health? Not very much according to new research carried out at Cambridge University[ii].

In 2019 (see July post) we reported on research suggesting the absence of certain non-pathogenic bacteria in our bodies may explain the cause of Autism-Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and may lead to its effective treatment.

This article is about four trends that have and will continue to shape our lives, our economy and our environment in which we learn and practice EMDR, and organise our EMDR communities.

We want to increase our capacity to serve the EMDR community by producing more videos to enhance clinical practice.

We are a ‘not for profit’ social enterprise company, but to continue investing in new videos we need to increase our standard monthly subscription fee from £5 to £5.99 per month on October 1 2020, but the good news is…

A UK accredited EMDR therapist wrote to emdrgateway recently: “I wanted to thank the Gateway team for having such a positive impact on my clinical practice and consequently on my clients.”

Introduction

A recent Jiscmail thread on the speed of eye movements in processing set a hare chasing in my brain and stimulated me to do some research. I thought our readers might be interested in my reflections as a springboard to their own thoughts rather than as a definitive treatise on the subject.

The thread began with a very interesting question from Dr Ruth Armstong ‘Does anyone know of any studies into the use of slow vs fast BLS or into the number used per set?

Donna Jackson Nakazawa is a science journalist whose niche spans neuroscience, immunology, and human emotion. She tells of how she recovered from several autoimmune diseases, one after the other, and of the breakthroughs in understanding of the relationship between brain and body, and in particular the connection between inflammation in the body and illness in the brain.

According to the Times (27/11/2019), a one off shot of Ketamine, an anaesthetic and also an illegal party drug, could help heavy drinkers cut their alcohol consumption, a study suggests.

Mid Wales, where we are located, is a hive of new company start-ups.

Within the boundaries of age discrimination, we are looking for a couple of younger people (age’s 20-30 somethings) to play appropriate roles in forthcoming video productions. 

The British Psychological Society is advocating an alternative to the DSM diagnostic model.  The alternative is called the PTM (Power, Threat, Meaning) Framework for determining the origins and maintenance of distress.

There is increased recognition that the billions of apparently non-pathogenic bacteria in our bodies are actually important for our health.  In the case of ASD, the absence of some of these bacteria may explain the cause of this condition and this recognition may also lead to its effective treatment.

In the Economist March 16th there appeared an article about the use of a drug based on Ketamine to treat ‘treatment-resistant’ depression, defined as not responding adequately to at least two previous antidepressants.

According to an account in the Times newspaper on March 21st, anaesthetics may not only dull physical pain, but may also help reduce mental anguish associated with traumatic memories.

According to an article in this year’s October 6th Economist, children from ethnic minorities, short, obese, disabled, gay or have poor social skills are at higher risk of being bullied.