Dr Ian Opperman

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Dr. Ian Opperman

My Trauma

What is Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR)

Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR) was designed by Dr Francine Shapiro. She was walking in a forest experiencing a strong negative emotion and with her eyes she followed a bird bouncing from branch to branch. She immediately felt relief from the emotion, and did not understand why this happened. One of the reasons we proposed for the fact that EMDR works to desensitise strong emotions is during night time, in deep sleep we go through Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep phase during which we dream. People will often report that they went to sleep feeling angry at their boss at work or their husband, just to wake up the next morning to find the emotion being much lighter. We believe that EMDR works along the same lines.

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Originally, when EMDR was created, the therapist used their hand in front of the patient’s eyes, like a slow moving windscreen wiper; however, Dr Shapiro realised that it is not actually the eye movement that brings about the change but the stimulation of both sides of the brain and therefore bilateral buzzing or sound can also be used to the same effect. A little device has been designed where earphones and buzzers are put on the patient, where it beeps in their ear and buzzes in their hands alternately.  EMDR has been used extensively for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with great success and Dr Opperman has used it over many years with his patients after home evasions, armed robberies, carjacking, and any other forms of trauma.

It also works very successfully for long term trauma like childhood sexual abuse by a close family member or family friend.

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT / Tapping)

Gary Craig is the founder of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). He studied at Stanford in Engineering and was always interested in peak personal performance and emotional health. He states in his EFT Manual that he “realized that the quality of one’s life was directly related to their emotional health. Emotional health is the foundation beneath self-confident and self-confidence is the springboard to achievement in every walk of life”. Gary’s scientific background led him to experiment with Thought Field Therapy (TFT) introduced to him by Dr Roger Callahan and searched for the simplest rout to effectiveness.

EFT is almost like an emotional needle-free version of acupuncture, it is a short procedure that can be used for almost any ailment you can think of – physical or emotional. It has been used to an enormous variety of conditions and thousands of clinical and case studies have been documents. Some of the successful cases include pain management, sports performance, serious disease, minor ailments like colds and sore throats, trauma and traumatic memories, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Grief, sadness and loss, unresolved emotions, fear and phobias, relationship issues, etc.

EFT promises that “all negative emotions are caused by a disruption in the body’s energy system”. There is a very strong link between unresolved emotions and what happens in our bodies.

If we are holding on to anger, resentment, fear, or any other strong emotion for a long time, it can contribute to the body and its organs not functioning optimally and therefore leading to disease.

Once the unresolved emotion in cleared with a simple procedure like EFT, the body can function as it should again.

Matrix Reimprinting

Matrix Reimprinting was created by Karl Dawson, Emotion Freedom Technique (EFT) Master and is a Mediterranean Tapping Therapy. This technique is effective for both emotional and physical issues; it can be used to manifest your goals and dreams and evolved from the self-help technique EFT. EFT is used with Matrix Reimprinting to heal and change your relationship to your past which dramatically transforms your physical and emotional health in the present..

Matrix Reimprinting is very gentle and allows you to release a whole range of traumatic experiences without being re-traumatised. EFT uses tapping on meridian end points to undertake stressful life memories without any emotional disruptions or stress, which is obviously extremely useful, as negative past memories keep the body in a state of stress and can contribute to disease. However, with Matrix Reimprinting the memory is actually transformed. You can go into any past memory, say and do what you wished you had said and done, bring in new resources, and create and transform the picture you have of that memory. It is important to recognize that this process is very different from denying what happened.

Brain Working Recursive Therapy (BWRT)

BWRT was inspired in 1983 by the research of Benjamin Libet, Professor at the University of California Terrence Watts developed BWRT in 2012. He started out as a Computer Engineer and then became one of the leading Psychotherapists in the UK. He was intrigued by Libet’s work and this led him to develop BWRT.

BWRT has been designed to remove emotive responses from memories that are deeply troubling and create new, adaptive neutral pathways that do not have the old undesirable responses attached to it. The therapy extends the neural pathways so that the client/patient’s brain knows the patterns to use in future. Every new experience creates a new template. In other words, BWRT uses the idea of learning a new way of reacting and behaving via repetition, rehearsal and reflection on successes.