Product reviews for Eye Movement Integration Therapy

This is the first book on this subject and represents a timely re-write translation form the original French.  Eye Movement Integration therapy, is a new "neuro-therapeutic" approach to the treatment of intrusive memories, phobias, post-traumatic-stress-disorder etc.  Although it has obvious overlaps with EMDR, Beaulieu seeks to identify EMI as a separate discipline.  There are, indeed, a few subtle but important differences.  EMI uses the longer smooth-pursuit eye movements and encourages conscious connection with the "toxic' psychic material.  Perhaps most tellingly the eye-movements themselves have been found to be a necessary component for success in EMI whereas studies with EMDR have found them to be sufficient.

Beaulieu begins by laying down the paradigm within which we can conceptualise the action of EMI, how indications actually manifest at the cognitive level and accordingly what we can expect, or aspire to, in the form of treatment.

Chapter three comprises an exhaustive and extremely convincing case for the efficacy and aetiology behind EMI therapy, at the cognitive, affective and neurological levels.  It is already beyond doubt that eye-movement anomalies are correlated with the majority of psychological disorders, to the point that these anomalies can be used as part of the diagnostic procedure itself.  The conviction that this is, to some degree, a two-way street (and this seems to be the case) is all that is needed then to justify the science behind the practice.

The general idea is that various portions of the visual field will access different modalities with regard to the memory.  A systematic journey through all the areas with periodic verbal feedback whilst remaining connected to the memory will help to integrate the memory thereby combining various fragmented sensations into a multi-modal "Gestalt".  It's very specialised anchor-collapsing.

The rest of the book is devoted to clinical practice.  The care and precision given to chapters dealing with assessing and preparing the client is comprehensively lengthy, but obviously useful.

After completing 70 percent of the book we are finally introduced to the eye-movements themselves.  Here is a facet of the book I found perplexing, despite it's highly academic style and seemingly comprehensive nature, I had the impression that just around the next corner I would be let in on the secrets that would finally bring together all I had learnt so far.  I believe a few more pages of general introduction as to the nature of the actual techniques themselves are needed towards the beginning of the book.  My advice to you would be to read Chapter 7 Eye Movement Integration first then read the whole book through from the start.

A transcript of a sample session, and an index will be worthy additions to the next edition.  This aside I believe I will find this work very useful in my own practice.  Beaulieu insists that this is a reference work and not a manual for practising, apparently it's no substitute for an actual training course.  I like to think of this insistence as some sort of nudge-wink legal disclaimer.