This is from an email sent by Jim Marshall, a great psychotherapist, deep thinker, and good soul:
"I was delighted to see that there will be a section in your book on EMDR and Spiritual Issues. Back in 1992, Francine asked me and a clinician from California to lead the EMDR and Spirituality Special Interest Group starting at the 2nd annual conference that year. That same year I had presented a paper to the second annual conference of the American Association of Christian Couselors entitled "EMDR--A Godsend in the Healing Process". The cool outcome was that eventually the Christian therapy community got hip to EMDR and a few folks out at Fuller did PhD dissertations on it, but my own grad school, Wheaton College hasn't done squat (per the irony of being a faith-based program that overvalues well-designed studies yielding scientific evidence before fully exploring a new treatment). That was a long time ago. Anyhow the topic continues to be a very conscious daily focus for me and i will look forward to any chapters devoted to it.
An observation: I have NEVER observed EMDR to prompt change or cognitive shifting away from or contradictory to the person's spiritual orientation, meaning both their affective bond with God and their theology (i.e., their view of the nature of God, the Person of Christ, and the nature of the relationship He desires) UNLESS these were both distorted and contaminated by transferences (e.g., Heavenly Father/earth dad). With the clearing of those transferences, their theology did shift, i.e., it became more accurate/attuned to an orthodox Christian theology centering on a Gospel of love versus a conditional, punitive, shaming theology. Also, it has always been fascinating (per Paul Vitz, NYU) to observe how clients' theological formation through early adulthood (with shifts and changes, embracing/abandoning certain faith traditions) is powerfully influenced by the nature of their early attachments, and reinforced or reshaped by later attachment experiences."
I found this article very interesting. Please keep up the good work.
Posted by: San Diego Therapist | June 05, 2008 at 05:02 PM