EMDR and the Energy Therapies: Psychoanalytic Perspectives By Phil Mollon. London: Karnac Books. 2005. 300pp. £22.50 (pb). ISBN 1855753766

This is a fascinating book, not only because it is about the use of EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing), which offers a very interesting and powerful approach to the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other disorders, but also because of the way Phil Mollon compares its use to current psychoanalytic practices. I was surprised when, after a description of EMDR and the energy therapies as powerful therapeutic tools, he launched into a validation of the early Freud, who wrote the Project for a Scientific Psychology in 1895. Referring to Shapiro, the founder of EMDR, he writes: The difference is that resolution in EMDR is through intrapsychic processing, rather than through the interpretation of the transference. This processing is achieved by bilateral stimulation embedded within a clearly outlined protocol. The bilateral stimulation can involve eye movements, sounds or finger-tapping, depending on the client's preference.

‘For Freud, as for Shapiro, psychopathology (and dreams) are constructed out of networks of memories; the original troubling memories of childhood experience being subject to strategies of avoidance, yet ever ready to be triggered, with accompanying physiology, when an associative cue is encountered. This is the psychodynamic mind. Therapy consists of accessing and reassessing, with adult awareness, the desires and the memories or phantasies of pain associated with them. Both EMDR and Freudian based psychoanalysis do this.'

The energy therapies that Mollon discusses address disturbances in a person's energy fields and use various techniques to facilitate the ‘distribution and flow of quantities of excitation’, thereby relieving the patient's symptoms.

I know that most psychoanalysts feel obliged to use Freud to validate their belief systems or their work, but I was surprised at how Phil Mollon links EMDR to Freud's early theoretical formulations of the unconscious. I was even more surprised at the way this well-known senior psychoanalyst uses his findings in EMDR to attack current psychoanalytic techniques, with their emphasis on the ‘here and now’ approach to treatment. He criticises this form of psychoanalysis for not having the means to process trauma and other damaging past experiences.

Two-thirds of the book is devoted to a detailed presentation of how EMDR can be used in the brief treatment of people suffering from a wide range of fairly complex disorders. The only criticism I have to make is that he does not always use the protocol that Shapiro insists is important when carrying out EMDR. However, despite this, his results appear to be good and his enthusiasm for this new approach is contagious.

Since EMDR is now a recommended treatment for PTSD in the new National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidelines, this book could not have appeared at a better time. His detailed descriptions of his treatment sessions are very helpful for both beginners and more experienced psychotherapists. Psychoanalysts may feel inclined to reject EMDR but it is, as Mollon shows, an extraordinary way of accessing unconscious mental processes. I can only recommend this book for its rich and thoughtful contributions to the field of psychological treatments.