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There have been many social media and press articles about a range of celebrities availing themselves of EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing in the last few years. Prince Harry being one of the main sources of publicity, and his therapist Sanja Oakley, EMDR consultant with the EMDR Association UK, was interviewed by Amel Muhtar.

How does EMDR work? After an initial phase of trying to understand a person’s difficulties and how they developed, it is important to work on developing their resources to improve their capacity to regulate their emotions better and to ground themselves to enhance their sense of safety in the here and now. These preparatory steps help to increase readiness for trauma work. During the trauma processing phase, a person remembers the traumatic event or aspects of it whilst they are simultaneously moving their eyes from side-to-side or listening to a sound in each ear alternately or feeling a tap on each hand or knee alternately.