Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing was developed by Francine Shapiro. She observed in her treatment of people who were dealing with traumatic memories that they would have saccadic eye movements. There were other observations she made that made her wonder whether, if she duplicated these for her patients while working with them on their trauma memories, they might be helped with their symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. She then developed a process, manualized it, and studied it to see whether or not it was effective for treatment of PTSD.
You do an assessment, obviously. You want to know what you're treating; you make the diagnosis. Then you have to identify in the patient that they are able to recall certain memories associated with images or imagery that symbolize for them their most distressing memories. You then have to help guide them through a way of describing in words what it is that's distressing about that. Basically, you have them hold that image and those thoughts in mind. You ask them to think about those things, and then you have them go through a series of rapid alternating eye movements while they sit with that. You would have them do a certain amount of that, and then you'd check in with them and ask where they are.
That's a very brief description. But I believe it draws on a component of exposure. We know exposure therapy helps with PTSD, having people face their demons, if you want, or confront their most distressing memories. It draws on cognitive behavioural therapy in encouraging a person to look at alternative thoughts in response to those, and it draws on suggestion. It gives them something to do. I think there's a component of suggestion in there.