Danie Beaulieu presents for the first time a thorough review of the theory and application of Eye Movement Integration, a therapeutic approach to the resolution of trauma and anxiety based on NLP's eye-movement, accessing cues. Using smooth-pursuit eye movements to access and integrate various representational systems, EMI allows a client to break the unhealthy habitual modes of thought that maintain their symptom.

Sharing her comprehensive knowledge and experience, the author is introducing to a wider audience a powerful therapy that has been in use since the late 1980's. From the evidence presented, it is clear that Eye Movement Integration Therapy should be seen as a serious contender to the throne currently occupied by EMDR.

The ability of the body and spirit to heal itself is a belief passionately held by the international lecturer and author Dr Danie Beaulieu. Her ground-breaking work into the rapid resolution of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through EMI is both pioneering and daring. This clinical guide which is written for professionals, merits serious consideration for the open-minded and those genuinely interested in PTSD resolution.

EMI is a form of therapy that reminds of EMDR. Both methods are used to reduce negative consequences from psychologically traumatic experiences via activation of eye movements in determined patterns. The book, which is practical in its nature, contributes to several insights and practical advices to different kinds of professional therapists. Considering that EMI can be a powerful technique the author recommends that on should attend a course before one uses the described techniques. This book is interesting and very nicely written. A big plus is the practical elements.<br /><br />Very much worth reading.

With this book, Danie Beaulieu has taken the NLP literature to a new level. Many psychotherapists in the NLP community have long wished for an NLP book they could comfortably share with their mainstream colleagues. Here is one that should pace mainstream expectations. It is scholarly in the best of senses, evincing a measured and meticulous thoroughness (every bit as comprehensive as it claims) whilst still being a pleasure to read. Quite a combo.

Eye Movement Integration (EMI) was developed by Connirae and Steve Andreas in 1989 to treat traumatic memories. Though it must have featured in their many NLP trainings of the time it was, to my knowledge, only available to a wider public through a demonstration videotape of Steve at the Ericksonian Brief Therapy Conference of 1993. Consequently, it might have pretty much blipped out of existence had not Danie Beaulieu, with the Andreases' blessing, made it her mission to give what she considers a method “as important as the advent of penicillin” a wider public presence. (Yes, the bit about penicillin may be uncharacteristically excessive, but Dr Beaulieu clearly sees EMI as far more than just another NLP technique.)

Though eye movements have been indelibly linked to NLP, with the eye movement chart as the NLP icon, their importance has lain primarily in what they can tell us about someone else's experience rather than in how they can be used to assist that person. There are some counter-examples: intentional use of eye movement was advocated in early texts on strategy installation; long ago, Grinder recommended eye movement drills to increase the sensory system flexibility of practitioners; and more recently, doubtless influenced by NLP, enthusiasts for one of the energy therapies (BSFF) created a process which applies its treatment to all eye positions (called iSt9x9). Nonetheless, eye movements have generally been considered more part of the information gathering and access phase than of the change process itself.

For most people the therapeutic use of eye movements is associated not with NLP but with Francine Shapiro's Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). That method, though, favours rapid lateral movements while EMI uses much slower movements designed to connect all the eye positions. The importance of connecting all eye positions is based on the NLP theory that the various movements of the eyes access different sensory systems and, therefore, different areas of neurology. Added to this is the EMI assumption that a traumatic experience remains unintegrated in a person's life precisely because it is isolated, both in their neurology and in their thinking. The principle behind EMI is that “all the relevant multisensory dimensions” are required for full integration of the disturbing experience and thus the aim of the eye movements is to create “new linkages between different types of sensory, affective, or cognitive information.” The result does not extinguish the memory of what happened but it does strip off the emotional charge that was causing all the problems.

Danie Beaulieu was present at Steve Andreas' demonstation to that Ericksonian Foundation Brief Therapy Conference ten years ago. She saw him work with a Vietnam veteran plagued by flashbacks. Though the man is not all that expressive it is clear enough that these flashbacks are very disturbing, yet at the end of 45 minutes of guided eye movements he says of the tracers, arcing over the battlefield of his internal imagery, that “they are pretty.” Dr Beaulieu, who had not had an NLP training at the time, was left puzzled and frustrated. She didn't know why what had happened had happened.

In addition, Steve implied that the audience members (clinicians all) could go off and do this themselves with the benefit of his handouts. As Dr Beaulieu puts it, “From my training, I was used to absorbing a good five hundred hours of theoretical information before putting it into practice.” That makes her frustration understandable.

But it became a fruitful frustration, and much to our benefit as it seems to have motivated her investigative plunge into EMI. Additionally, the rigours of her prior therapeutic training doubtless encouraged the thoroughness of her pursuit and the care with which she elaborates the EMI process for the reader.

On the videotape, Steve says that what he does is very different from EMDR. One difference he mentions is that “She [Francine Shapiro] puts it in a whole treatment context. I don't.” Dr Beaulieu, however, does put it in a whole treatment context (and, as a measure of her thoroughness, she also took training in EMDR to permit a contrastive analysis with that method). It's all there in the book, the whole treatment context from soup to nuts. All that's missing is the experiential element, which doesn't fit between book covers, and that she provides in training workshops.

Additionally, there are two substantial sections: one on the nature of trauma, and the other on the research literature that hints at the mechanisms behind EMI. Both are excellent expositions, and her discourse on trauma could be recommended to any clinician regardless of their treatment preferences.

Historically, the extension of the term “trauma,” and its range of application, has taken it from a rarity to a commonality. Initially, the concept of a psychological trauma was reserved for when something quite out of the ordinary had been visited upon its victim, by Nature or by other people. More recent is the label of PTSD, with its list of diagnostic criteria. But the recognition has also spread that much less extraordinary circumstances can have lasting and problematic consequences; indeed, that the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which even the most ordinary life is heir to can leave disturbances in their wake, which mimic, to a degree, the sequelae of PTSD. Dr Beaulieu embraces this broader view of trauma when she defines it as “any experience that leaves an imprint that continues to give rise to negative effects and recurrrences in one or more of the sensory, emotional or cognitive systems.” It is for the full range of such conditions, from flaming trauma to simmering pique, that she counts EMI the most effective remedy she has found.

The wide-ranging application she proposes for EMI is not unfamiliar in NLP. From the early NLP days it was recognized that the much-vaunted phobia cure (in its various guises) was useful for a great many more conditions of distress and discomfort than would meet a clinical definition of phobia. When things trouble us, or there is hindrance to our designs, there will usually be an emotional component lessening our ability to resolve them. Dr Beaulieu makes a good case for the effectiveness of EMI in such instances. This suggests the method could take its place as a major component of NLP, as well as being a major contribution, from the NLP field, to the psychotherapeutic community at large. This is clearly what Dr Beaulieu would hope and, in her book, she does all she could have to realize that hope.

Dr Beaulieu's achievement is so impressive it seems mealy-mouthed to be picky about this or that, but what's a critical review without a cavil or two. So here goes: In the section on how to establish a resource state anchor, Dr Beaulieu gives five questions designed to help the client access a resource state. These could be better constructed, usually by switching to an injunctive mode. For instance, the first such question, “Was there a time when you had a distinct feeling of hope, courage or strength?” opens to consideration the possibility that there was not. The question seems contaminated by obeisance to the social niceties. A question like, “When have you had a distinct feeling of hope, courage or strength?” points its hearer more directly toward the access intended. Concern about a direct question sounding rude is misplaced as it can be mellowed by manner and tonality. (As an aside, Dr Beaulieu introduces a new term, to me at least, when she uses the pleasingly metaphoric “anchorage” to denote a resourceful state triggered through anchoring.)

When the term “submodalities” is first used it is not defined. Subsequent mentions do include examples from which its meaning might be deduced, but the unfamiliar term could, nonetheless, trouble a non-NLP reader. Writing of “reframing,” she gives the (mistaken) impression that the term was an NLP coinage, and compounds this by citing, as its most common usage, what is better known as the V-K Dissociation technique.

To quibble on, the lack of an index will annoy some, though the orderly layout of chapters is such as to make an index fairly redundant. Lastly, an appendix gives us a research article by Dr Beaulieu (a good thing) but no indication of whether or where it was published.

These are all minor matters in what is a substantial work of considerable worth. Danie Beaulieu is a careful writer and gives the impression of being an equally careful clinician. What she has fashioned in this comprehensive book will reward any NLPer interested in personal change, even as it sets a precedent for how to introduce NLP approaches to a mainstream psychotherapy audience. She is to be congratulated.

Dr Graham Dawes was a founding director of the UK Training Centre for NLP (the first NLP training centre outside North America) and, with David Gordon, developed the Experiential Dynamics approach, of which the best known element is their Experiential Array for modelling.

It took me a little while to get into this book - not because it is in any way boring or dry but because I have no prior knowledge of the subject and I was searching for a chapter that would tell me immediately how to use the therapy. Having found nothing clearly marked, I decided I'd better read it from cover to cover in order to miss nothing of importance. I'm pleased I did because, as well as outlining the author's work on expanding a therapy originally devised by Steve and Connirae Andreas, there are some very interesting other techniques in the book, which the author found very useful in helping clients to resolve their traumas after the original sensitising events were uncovered using EMI.

This therapy was based on Bandler & Grinder's Eye Accessing Cues, which we all know and use to one degree or another. EMI expands on that by asking the client to outline his/her problem whilst, in simple terms, the therapist uses an object to guide the client's gaze from whichever is the dominant mode (visual, auditory or kinaesthetic) through each of the others in turn, in a prescribed pattern, thus enabling the client to recall memories which may otherwise be missed, knowing, as we do, that someone who is predominantly visual will tend to filter out the auditory and kinaesthetic aspects of a memory to some degree, just as an auditory person may not recall much about the visual aspects of an event and someone who is kinaesthetic might not consciously notice sounds or pictures, concentrating instead on what was being felt at the time.

I think it would be possible to learn to do EMI from reading the book but therapists would probably benefit from finding someone who could demonstrate it first, as it is a much more comprehensive subject than it sounds from the simplistic overview I have outlined here. According to the author, this method can lead much more quickly to very vivid recall and thus to a rapid solution to the traumatic event. I have not yet had occasion to use the technique but it certainly sounds interesting enough to delve more deeply into it.

Danie Beaulieu is one of the most lively, innovative and intelligent teachers of psychotherapy that I have ever encountered. Eye Movement Integration is just one of her many valuable contributions. This rising star is sure to impact our field and impact our effectiveness as clinicians.

I was particularly pleased to receive this book to review because it fills a space that has long need filling. I have been tantalised by the possibilities of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) for many years, but as a lay hypnotherapist I have found myself excluded from training on several occasions through not having the 'right background'. Similarly specific details are omitted from texts. Even books by its originator, Francine Shapiro, extol its virtues but deny you the information needed to utilise it. Very frustrating, but not uncommon. So often new techniques have a fence erected around them to either enable the originator to make money from it, or to limit the knowledge to whomever the originator deems the 'right people' to use it.

That is one of the things I love about NLP. It is a magpie that collects anything new and sparkly, makes a model of it and then (usually) makes it available to the outside world. Something similar has happened in this case. EMI has its origins in the work of top NLP innovator Steve Andreas and, while sharing many similarities with EMDR, also has several things which distinguish it.

EMI is based on the idea, long accepted within NLP, that eye movements are a key part of the process of thinking. As a client accesses a memory connected to their problem, their eyes will move in certain specific directions as part of the means by which that memory is retrieved. Further, the meaning of that memory will also be connected to the areas of the client's visual field that they access during the recollection of the memory; in part we know whether we like spaghetti bolognese by where our eyes go when we visualise a plate of it.

EMI works by having the client access a memory that is key to the client's problem, and as they recall it they follow the finger of the therapist as it traces patterns in their visual field. These patterns are precisely determined and vary as the treatment develops. As this process develops clients often experience a profound transformation of their problem.

Danie Beaulieu has done an excellent job in presenting the theory and practice of EMI. It is thorough, well-researched, and provides everything a book can provide in preparing you to use this powerful technique safely.

The book begins with a history of EMI's origins, and how some interesting cases the author had led her to realise the range of EMI's applications. It then goes on to cover the neurological theories that support it, the primary differences between EMI and EMDR and possible links with the function of REM sleep.

In detail the author considers client evaluation and treatment planning - including a useful client assessment questionnaire in the appendix " before going onto setting up the client session.

Chapters 6-8, clearly describe the method - the range of movements, the questions to ask, how the session may progress. There is a wealth of information clearly described.

The book concludes with a 'troubleshooting' guide that covers the most common variations of client experience.

While a book can never replace fully the benefits to be gained from face-to-face training, this book deserves to become the major reference for this technique. There is much to be learned here that is worthwhile, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to extend their range of options.

Dr. Beaulieu has written a splendid book.

If you want an addition to your professional library that contains an excellent review of the latest neurophysiology regarding trauma and the brain written in understandable prose, and a splendid, coherent analysis of one of the newest therapeutic techniques for the psychotherapy of trauma-spectrum disorders along with a clear description of how one actually uses the techniques, then this is the book you are looking for.

It is filled with short, cogent case examples. There are also helpful hints for the therapist who might not have as much experience as others, but finds him- or herself with patients for whom this approach could bring much needed fast and lasting relief.

I highly recommend it.

This is the first book on this subject and represents a timely re-write translation form the original French.  Eye Movement Integration therapy, is a new "neuro-therapeutic" approach to the treatment of intrusive memories, phobias, post-traumatic-stress-disorder etc.  Although it has obvious overlaps with EMDR, Beaulieu seeks to identify EMI as a separate discipline.  There are, indeed, a few subtle but important differences.  EMI uses the longer smooth-pursuit eye movements and encourages conscious connection with the "toxic' psychic material.  Perhaps most tellingly the eye-movements themselves have been found to be a necessary component for success in EMI whereas studies with EMDR have found them to be sufficient.

Beaulieu begins by laying down the paradigm within which we can conceptualise the action of EMI, how indications actually manifest at the cognitive level and accordingly what we can expect, or aspire to, in the form of treatment.

Chapter three comprises an exhaustive and extremely convincing case for the efficacy and aetiology behind EMI therapy, at the cognitive, affective and neurological levels.  It is already beyond doubt that eye-movement anomalies are correlated with the majority of psychological disorders, to the point that these anomalies can be used as part of the diagnostic procedure itself.  The conviction that this is, to some degree, a two-way street (and this seems to be the case) is all that is needed then to justify the science behind the practice.

The general idea is that various portions of the visual field will access different modalities with regard to the memory.  A systematic journey through all the areas with periodic verbal feedback whilst remaining connected to the memory will help to integrate the memory thereby combining various fragmented sensations into a multi-modal "Gestalt".  It's very specialised anchor-collapsing.

The rest of the book is devoted to clinical practice.  The care and precision given to chapters dealing with assessing and preparing the client is comprehensively lengthy, but obviously useful.

After completing 70 percent of the book we are finally introduced to the eye-movements themselves.  Here is a facet of the book I found perplexing, despite it's highly academic style and seemingly comprehensive nature, I had the impression that just around the next corner I would be let in on the secrets that would finally bring together all I had learnt so far.  I believe a few more pages of general introduction as to the nature of the actual techniques themselves are needed towards the beginning of the book.  My advice to you would be to read Chapter 7 Eye Movement Integration first then read the whole book through from the start.

A transcript of a sample session, and an index will be worthy additions to the next edition.  This aside I believe I will find this work very useful in my own practice.  Beaulieu insists that this is a reference work and not a manual for practising, apparently it's no substitute for an actual training course.  I like to think of this insistence as some sort of nudge-wink legal disclaimer.

"Every experience creates a ripple effect in our lives,influencing us in profound or insignificant ways in the present and future.When those influences are strongly negative and limiting; when they disturb our functioning;when they deny us full enjoyment of life;when they disrupt our mental or physical health,then they are a problem."

This is a book that has been thoroughly researched and the information presented was, at times,overwhelming.It has left me wanting to see a demonstration of the technique,to access another way of absorbing the information.

The author has defined trauma as "...any experience that leaves an imprint that continues to give rise to negative effects and recurrences in one or more of the sensory,emotional or cognitive systems."

In NLP terms,we use "accessing cues "to access information stored and eye movements are the most easily observed and are the most consistent among different cultures.

Using the client 's eye movements to access stored trauma and using a different series of eye movements to reduce that trauma is explained in great detail.

"The objective of the EMI approach is to recruit the inner resources needed to resolve a painful memory."

Danie Beaulieu has identified a lot of precautions to be undertaken by a therapist using EMI.A comprehensive history taking of the client 's psychological and physical conditions is paramount. The process of integration which begins during the eye movements will continue for several days and an assessment of progress in required. Support is categorised as "too little,too much or just enough." The "Setting of the Therapy Session "makes a lot of sense and the metaphors presented to help explain the process to the client are valuable.

This is not a book for the novice and is designed to assist those who are seeking to add other skills to those they have already honed over a period of time.

This is an amazing book about a clearly very powerful method. The subject of eye movement integration is tackled with great clarity and in great depth. An impressive read, and one that I am sure will be an asset to anyone who wants to add an important tool to  alleviating their clients' problems.

Since the identification of post Traumatic stress disorder as a distinct syndrome in its won right in the late 1980s, many forms of therapy including psychotherapy and hypnotherapy have been utilised to the full to help the sufferers of the syndrome resolve persistent psychological and physical distress associated with the problem. Behavioural, cognitive, biofeedback and psychodynamic therapies have all gone a long way in showing their own particular uses. Of late, Eye Movement Integration Therapy has been used with considerable success. For so long therapies have helped but have not had what could honestly be called ” enduring results”. Eye Movement Integration Therapy seems to have conquered this and has been used as an excellent access tool to cue and activate the traumatic memories embedded in the mind of the patient, with positive and enduring results! EMIT is not widely used in this country at the moment, although there have been numerous therapists offering such therapy to their patients in north America with often astonishing results. EMI consists of identifying a disturbing memory which is the apparent precipitating or underlying cause for the patient's distress, and then facilitating activation and integration of that memory with other multi sensory information by a guided series of eye movement patterns. These patterns or figures cover the entire visual field of the patient, which is intended to aid in accessing the full spectrum of information processing strategies internally available to the patient.

As the patient holds the memory in consciousness, each eye movement pattern is executed, with the patient following the guiding movements of the therapist's hand. During a pause between one figure and the next, alterations to the patients internal representation of the memory are analysed and assessed, allowing the patient to explore changes in sensory and physical areas and new associations which may now be facilitated. Specifically this is introduced to exclude as far as possible any extensive discussion or guidance from the therapist.

Integration of the memory is considered to be complete when eye movements elicit only positive information in the various sensory modes, and the patient is no longer distressed at all when recalling the memory: Treatment is in basically three stages:

Identification of traumatic memories

 Eye movement procedure 

Anchoring of the new state 

In recent trials, disturbing memories within a wide variety of traumas were treated and Eye Movement was offered as an alternative to standard therapy. Many patients experienced physical response such as agitation, stomach pain, tears or even of the pain, which may have been experienced at the time of the trauma. These sensations changed rapidly as additional eye pattern movements were followed. As the treatments proceeded most patients reported positive sensations of release and loss of tension, as well as altered perception of the trauma. This new and innovative treatment is now made more readily available to you through Dr Beaulieu's book. It offers new hope to those who endure long lasting effects of trauma and new pathways for therapists to follow. 

This comprehensive guide is the first major book on the subject and is intended for the readership of therapists, social workers, psychologists and other such health professionals. It clearly presents the background and theoretical basis for the development of the therapy and also gives detailed instructions for the successful application of it within your work with a patient.

 The book is remarkably easy to read although I do find the topic complex to follow personally. It is helped by the fact that the book is filled with well-illustrated clinical cases and experiences. It is claimed the EMI is astonishingly rapid in its effects freeing patients from the burden of unresolved memories of almost any form of trauma from child abuse to car accidents; from rape to earthquake experience to combat situations. Treatment length varies from one to six on average. I would point out that this is NOT hypnosis but it is something which provides an extraordinarily direct means of releasing the powers of the mind to do what it was designed to do in the first place - to heal itself! By no means an easy read but I think, a compulsive one. 

This is an amazing book about an amazing therapeutic tool and is worthy of serious study and consideration. Crown House Publishing Limited is to be congratulated on bringing this to our attention and to the attention of a far wider public. This could see revolutionary improvement in the treatment of traumatic disorders for which patients will ever be thankful. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to you. Indeed, I can imagine no reason why this book should not feature immediately in your ” to Read” list. You owe it to yourself AND to your patients!!