Hypnosis Book Reviews...

Transforming Trauma EMDR
By Laurel Parnell, Ph.D

This is a glorious book written with passion by a woman who really loves her subject. It makes a superb complement to the first book which anyone interested in EMDR should buy - ‘Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing'  by its creator, Francine Shapiro. Whereas Dr. Shapiro's book gives detailed instructions as to how to perform the therapy, its style is dull and repetitive and her book is deliberately almost devoid of case histories. Dr. Parnell's book is lively and grabs the reader's attention right from the first chapter and she explores the uses, more than the methodology, of EMDR.

Starting with her own experiences of EMDR when she experienced a vivid reliving of her father's anger with her when she was two years old, Dr. Parnell describes how she used EMDR on herself for purposes as varied as overcoming her fear of snakes to getting through a divorce and magnetising into life a wonderful second husband. This release of emotions locked in her 'body-mind'  she found more helpful than her previous six years in psychotherapy. No wonder ‘EMDR conferences are oases of celebrations.' 

Dr. Parnell describes how EMDR is used for a variety of conditions from phantom limb pain to phobias and sexual abuse trauma, with gripping case histories. The intensity of the emotional and physical pain which comes up for patients leaps off the page - particularly in the story of the man who relived his pain of being circumcised as a tiny baby.

The most striking feature of this book is the emphasis the author places on spiritual transcendence. It is, she states, not just the aim of EMDR to remove pain, but to take the patient to a state of often almost mystical bliss. Patients spontaneously report feelings of oneness with the universe, memories of past lives, and a new and permanent opening of psychic and paranormal abilities. ‘There is a scared feeling in the room'  she reports one colleague as saying.

Definitely the second book to buy for anyone interested in EMDR, and a thoroughly exciting read for any therapist who believes that healing should be much more than just allowing the patient to cope better with life.

Reviewer Jane Bannister

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