EMDR and DNMS are two powerful and relatively new tools that are challenging what we believe or may have assumed about emotions and the nature of change. Where it was once accepted that therapy often took years, therapists and clients are finding that problems that were resistant to years of psychotherapy are being resolved in a relatively short amount of time. Sloan Gorman has been trained in both of these protocols.

EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It is a powerful way to get the brain to learn much more quickly than usual, which makes possible both rapid realizations about essential truths about a situation or event. This can increase the rate of recovery from the effects of acute psychological trauma and slower but thorough recovery from the effects of chronic psychological trauma. EMDR is now the best researched and validated way of treating PTSD.

How EMDR might work

There are a few theories about how EMDR might work.  One theory is that when a trauma occurs the ability to process information is disturbed and a neural pathology occurs.  The brain/body freezes the information in its original anxiety provoking form, complete with the original images and negative self-assessment.  Researchers think that EMDR is able to “nudge” that material so that the brain is able to neurologically reconnect and integrate the information.  It appears that EMDR is able to help the brain finally process “stuck” material, enabling the person to arrive at an adaptive resolution.  The painful event or trauma is then perceived as an unfortunate incident, but no longer produces the emotional pain that it did before.
 

DNMS (Developmental Needs-Meeting Strategy) uniquely combines concepts from ego-state therapy, developmental theory and EMDR into a powerful system of assessment and intervention. The DNMS can be used to systematically identify and rectify developmental gaps and wounds from childhood that are still exerting ongoing negative influences on the client. It helps clients become aware of their own inner resources and healing capacities.

How does it work?

The DNMS is an ego state therapy which guides the client’s own internal resources to met needs now that weren’t met well in childhood, one ego state at a time.  The process helps each stuck ego state (child part of self) have the corrective emotional experiences needed to become totally unstuck.  Remarkably, in the process, developmental stage traumas often desensitize automatically.  The DNMS provides for attachments and attunement needs, builds self-esteem, desensitizes trauma, integrates dissociated parts of self, and can provide an effective tool for affect regulation.