AN innovative form of rapid eye movement therapy, which helps people recover from emotional trauma, has won an international research award.
Beaconsfield resident and Murdoch University clinical psychology program director Chris Lee discovered that when a patient focused on their trauma and moved their eyes rapidly from side to side, they experienced more significant trauma reduction than when no eye movement therapy was used.
Dr Lee said people who experienced a traumatic event suffered disruption to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, the stage of sleep when substantial emotional memory processing occurs.
“The person is unable to process the event and thus the memory of the event continues to be experienced in its original traumatic form,” he said.
Dr Lee’s work was recognised with the inaugural Francine Shapiro award for research excellence at the 10th EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) Europe Conference in Amsterdam.