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When the Past is Present—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Forty-five years ago, in 1979, Francine Shapiro, an NYU doctoral candidate, studied how external events influenced characters' behavior in 19th-century English literature.

She envisioned a promising career as a literary critic and scholar. However, as she began her dissertation on the poetry of Thomas Hardy, her future plans were derailed when she received a devastating cancer diagnosis.

Shapiro's priorities and perspective rapidly shifted. Rather than continuing to focus on how fictional characters' inner lives were impacted by external events, she became consumed by a more pressing question: How do external stressors impact living people? Do the environment, daily struggles, and emotional injuries genuinely influence the mind and body?

In other words, what caused her illness?

While literature was Shapiro's primary academic focus, she always had a keen interest in psychology. Recently, she became intrigued by the emerging field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), a subfield of psychosomatic medicine that studies the interaction between the nervous and immune systems, and the relationship between mental processes and health.

The idea that stress could potentially influence disease states fascinated Shapiro. It led her to wonder whether there might be psychological or physiological methods that could help balance or restore physical well-being.

Upon receiving her cancer diagnosis, Shapiro realized that pursuing methods for health and healing had become far more crucial to her than the study of 19th-century literature.

So, she left New York to attend workshops and seminars exploring the mind-body connection and psychological interventions. She decided to switch disciplines, enrolling in a doctoral program in clinical psychology to formally study the intersection of mental and physical health.

By 1987, Shapiro was deep into her clinical psychology doctoral program.

As someone training to be a therapist, she used her mind and body as a personal laboratory for discovering new techniques and interventions.

THE DISCOVERY

One afternoon, struggling to shake off some disturbing, intrusive thoughts, she decided to clear her head with a walk in the park. As she walked, she realized that her painful thoughts were dissipating.

When she went to retrieve and re-engage with her upsetting thoughts, she was stunned to find they’d lost their intense hold over her.

She hadn't done anything special except walk.

Or, had she?

Upon closer inspection, Shapiro realized her eyes were darting back and forth in a saccadic eye movement pattern while the thoughts lost intensity.

Did the eye movements impact the strength of her thoughts?

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