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Alex Button

Alex Button

Clinical psychologist, EMDR Europe Accredited Consultant and Trainer, and founder of Dr Button Psychology and Dr Button EMDR Training in South Devon, UK.

Aug 7, 2026

1:01
But if people are watching this because they might be thinking, "Well, maybe I would want EMDR therapy for myself," or, "Maybe I would want to train in it if I'm a clinical already," could you give us a bit of an overview about what EMDR is?
1:15
Yeah, sure.
1:16
So EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, and it was developed in the '80s by a lady called Francine Shapiro, um, who had her own cancer diagnosis and was trying to work through that and process that, and noticed that when she was going on a walk one day through the park, her eyes had been moving back and forth in rapidly in a diagonal motion, and she felt less distressed about, um, her diagnosis and what was happening for her.
1:45
And then she consciously was thinking about what had been happening when she was walking, and that's how she noticed that her eyes had been moving back and forth really fast.
1:54
Um, and then she started thinking about using that technique, I guess, for other difficulties that she was having.
2:01
Not big traumas, just everyday kind of niggly things that were bothering her, and realized it was having the same effect.
2:07
It was reducing her distress about events.

8 MINS LATER

10:18
Yeah, exactly.

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