To the editor

In Isaac Bashevis Singer’s prolifi c Holocaust novel, Enemies: A Love Story (1972), the main character, Herman Broder, sets his eyes into an oscillating motion whenever he needs to deal with stress or anxiety. The books and poems of Native American author Sherman Alexie (1992, 2009) beautifully document how centuries of tribes have utilized the dance, an activity of tactile bilateral stimulation, to cope with distress and heighten performance. Kyra Gaunt (2006) documented how generations of African American girls have used clapping games, doubledutch jump rope, and other bilateral rhythmic activities to transition into adulthood. This small collection of examples sets a larger context for the development of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) that I feel, in the excitement over the 20th anniversary of Shapiro’s discovery, we have failed to consider. I write this letter with a great deal of respect for Dr. Francine Shapiro as someone who has tapped into the seemingly innate, healing power of bilateral stimulation and systematized it for use in psychotherapeutic settings. In the spirit of appreciating the larger context of her contribution, I feel the need to voice my concern about several points that she articulated in the interview with Marilyn Luber. (Excerpt)

Journal

English

Jamie N. Marich

Marich, J. N. (2010). To the editor. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 4(2), 100-101. doi:10.1891/1933-3196.4.2.100