New December 2009/Jan 2010 Podcast is live at the podcast link here: www.emdrmovie.com/beapart.html

This episodes’s guests are Scott Blech and Jeanette Gascho. Enjoy and send to friends, clients, and colleagues.

Introducing our new EMDR Podcast!

Our team has now launched our first EMDRmovie.com podcast. The shows are designed to discuss important issues regarding both EMDR in general and the film’s progress and production. We’ll be looking at the basics of EMDR as well as key developments in the field. Through interviews with major personalities and practitioners, the podcast will be a dynamic and thought-provoking addition to the dialogue we’re building on as we create and promote this documentary film.

Please click on “click here to listen to our new podcast” at the following website: www.emdrmovie.com/beapart.html

Thank you in advance for spreading the word about this new exciting addition and for sharing the link with friends and colleagues. Also, if you’re reading this announcement, we’d love to have you on as a guest to talk about EMDR. Please be in touch with us at (202) 713-8221 or via email- we’d love to profile your work.

New interview with the director released.

“Could you tell me a little about how you came to learn about EMDR?

I came across it when reading David Servan-Schreiber’s book, Healing Without Freud or Prozac. I can remember it very clearly, and I remember how the book just seemed to take such a sci-fi twist when the subject was broached. It was discussing such rational and scientific issues and then now was getting into this wild idea about brain stimulation. My first reaction was I think the same as a lot of people, a combination of mockery and curiosity about the psychosomatic potential of someone to “use” this to heal themselves. In other words, it certainly didn’t occur to me that EMDR could actually work or anything like that.

Then I began to look into it a little more. And it didn’t take long to see that my skepticism, well, really arrogance, was steeped in ignorance of the subject. I learned that EMDR is not hocus pocus and that there’s a growing body of evidence demonstrating how and why it works being developed by serious researchers and scientists. I guess I’m a curious person, so the more I learned the more I wanted to learn."

Read the full interview here:

http://www.emdrmovie.com/interview.html

Jeanette Gascho, MS, EMDR Psychotherapist

“Yet again today, I started from scratch to explain EMDR to a fairly new client – a university student who was describing some pretty clear exam anxiety symptoms. As usual, I gave my little spiel about how we think EMDR works, described how there is an actual protocol for exam anxiety, a bit about the process of EMDR, had her try on the headphones and feel the bi-lateral stimulation. And as usual, I gave her some relevant handouts to read, and a few web links to look up… Sometimes I wonder if it’s the best way to get a student interested in EMDR, especially when they’re already overwhelmed with reading and research.

“I found myself thinking, ‘Wow, when Michael’s film is done, I can just hand her my copy and say, “here – look at this!”’ I anticipate it will be such an accessible resource – not only a good overview of the theoretical side, but also real live people in real EMDR sessions. None of my descriptions can match that kind of first-hand observation. I anticipate that clients will return after viewing it to say, ‘How come no one told me about this before?!’”

Comment from Esly Regina Carvalho, President, EMDR Ibero-America (EMDRIBA), Trainer of Trainers, EMDR Institute

“Knowing our history is essential to finding our way to the future. Michael Burns is making an enormous contribution to the EMDR community with this documentary that details where we have come from and how EMDR makes a difference in the lives of so many. We hope this will lead other mental health professionals into the EMDR field and that even more people will benefit from the healing impact of this new and revolutionary mode of psychotherapy. EMDR Ibero-America salutes these efforts and thanks all of those involved for bringing EMDR up and front into the lives of people around the world.”

Comment from Scott Blech, Executive Director, EMDRIA

“Michael Burns is an accomplished filmmaker whom I first met when he conducted interviews of EMDR clinicians at the 2008 EMDRIA Conference. I am impressed by his efforts to record the dynamic history of EMDR so that trained mental health clinicians and the general public will have a better understanding about this important psychotherapy and how it can save lives. From an in-depth interview of Dr. Francine Shapiro to the experiences of other leading EMDR clinicians, this film chronicles the development of EMDR. EMDR International Association salutes Michael Burns as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of EMDR.”

Don deGraffenried, Clinical Director, Dixwell Newhallville Community Mental Health Services:

“The director, Michael Burns, has the experience, dedication, and perhaps above all the sensitivity, to tell the full story of EMDR and I support his professional efforts to inform the public about this breakthrough psychotherapy. As a Clinical Director working in New Haven, CT, I need a psychotherapy model that is sensitive to race, culture, gender, ethnicity and is empowerment based, strength oriented, and research validated. EMDR offers all of this and so much more. I hope that this important documentary will help to fully move EMDR into community mental health settings as well as bring greater accessibility to those returning from the trauma of war.”

Comment from Dr. Robert Gelbach, Executive Director, EMDR HAP:

“Michael Burns is a talented videographer and filmmaker with a penchant for using this compelling medium to challenge and to teach as well as entertain. He has now turned his inquisitive mind to one of the truly exciting developments in psychotherapy — the power of EMDR, a powerfully evidence-based treatment that has brought hope and healing to millions of people afflicted with psychological trauma. Burns is going to the roots of this therapy, introduced only 21 years ago, with penetrating interviews with discoverer Dr. Francine Shapiro and wide-ranging explorations of how EMDR has been a breakthrough therapy for combat trauma, victims of sexual attacks and child abuse, survivors of natural disasters and civil strife across a troubled planet. Along the way, he documents the unprecedented degree to which EMDR therapists become dedicated to spreading this new mental health resource through world-wide voluntary projects of the EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs.”

Michael best of luck with this film – I am looking forward to seeing it. I know there is a hugh amount of work involved and you have already laid much of the groundwork viz. the website, completed interviews etc.

Thanks for your response. This project is something that needs to be done and seen on a global scale, where people from around the world will become more aware of EMDR’s powerful outcomes. I know you will find the support to bring the project to that level.