This blog post will be of interest to the hypnotists, therapists,
psychologists, and NLPers amongst us. I love to develop and test, explore and
learn, especially in respect to interventions that I utilise. This blog post
will share some of my discoveries and learning in respect to using eye movement
interventions. This post is not to be read for writing skills – instead for the
ideas contained within!
Lazy 8’s to recover
memories
Most of you will have heard of the “Lazy 8’s”? This is an
eye movement pattern, the source of which I believe comes from Steve Andreas
and developed in Eye Movement Integration (EMI), EMIplus, and Integrated Eye
Movement Therapy. If you are a therapist and would like to know an amazing set
of tools and methodologies then I really urge you in getting appropriate
training in one (or all!) of these.
I utilise eye movement works as my ‘intervention of choice’
commonly when working with trauma and PTSD. The British Army psychologists and
psychiatrists use the more archaic Eye Movement Desensitisation and
Reprocessing (EMDR) with PTSD, which has been the subject of numerous clinical
trials that clearly identifying its efficiency.
(Note: The Army also utilises Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
with PTSD. Source: Officer in charge of the Army Medical Corps.)
I first saw the lazy 8’s in use by Andrew Austin on one of
his IEMT Practitioner trainings. He utilises the technique as part of a highly
efficient identity updating process.
I then saw Nigel Hetherington on one of his YouTube videos.
He was utilising lazy 8’s to gain a resource state with his subject. He moves
his finger in the wide figure of 8, and his client follows the movement with
his eyes, with his eyes moving right to their peripheries. Whilst the fingers
moved, the subject was invited to think of times when he was happy, laughing,
in a state of joy, and as the process continued more and more memories pop into
the subject’s mind and his body reacts in kind. In a very short space of time
the subject is bubbling with happiness!
I practiced and now utilise the same quite often with my
fight clients to get them ‘up’ for training. Any resource state can be produced
using this method.
I also spent time wondering how it works. What follows is
the best I have come up with – so far. Hopefully the readers of this blog will
be able to contribute more to this.
As a student of cognitive linguistics I full understand that
the words we use have a deeper structure beneath. As we speak, hear, or read
the words meaning is attached to the sound or the squiggle on the page. We have
learned this meaning through our life’s experience.
In the process above the words “happy”, “laughing” and “joy”
were all used to refer to experiences of the subject. So each time the words
were spoken to him, his mind would search for the reference experiences that
match. As the thoughts popped into his head and the emotions attached flashed
into his limbic system, his body starts to respond to the feelings. The more
memories that flash up the stronger the feeling grows.
Then there is the eye movement itself. There is the classic
rule of neurology – what fires together wires together. When we have an
experience the eyes are moving around during that experience – and therefore
get ‘coded in’ with the memory. So as we’re moving the eyes, whilst holding the
thoughts of finding ‘happy’, ‘laughing’ and ‘joy’ the eye movements help us to
connect to appropriate memories. The stronger the emotions the more relevance
the eye movements have in finding the reference experiences, they start coming
thick and fast, and the feeling begins to really intensify.
In short the eye
movements help us to trigger memories relating to the context we hold in mind.
I was recently working
with a 16 year old helping her with her studies, installing new strategies to
help her learn and retain information more quickly, speed reading, amongst much
more. I was using the principles of cognitive interviewing to help her remember
first the structure, and then the detail of a previous lesson.
(Of course, any memory is only a construct and recalls also
relies on that memory being there in the first place! You can’t call something
up that hasn’t been laid down.)
Teaching her the strategy of cognitive interviewing to
access the memory together with association to provide recall was quite quick.
Yet suddenly an idea popped into my head – what would happen if we used the
Lazy 8’s?
We quickly got the order of the lesson, and wrote the order
in single words chronologically. I then started the lazy 8’s, started to slowly
say the words in order, and the memories started coming thick and fast! After
about 45 seconds the lesson memory was in detail, and my client reported that
the images and memories were sharp. Yes, there were still gaps, yet this is
most likely to be an attention element – the memory has to be laid down in the
first place in order for it to be recalled. The details were there, she had a
big smile on her face as she could remember all the detail.
I’m now starting to wonder where we can use lazy 8’s in the
future. The eye movement pattern helps us to access memories. Andy Austin
demonstrates it nicely with his identity upgrading element to IEMT. Nigel
Hetherington in building his resource states as part of EMIplus. I’ve suggested
a further use here for recalling details. I wonder, what other applications can
you think of, already know, or find? Would be great if you could give feedback!
Adding Focus to Eye
Movements
Further to the above, EMI plus and IEMT work in a ‘flat’
plain. I’ve been adding depth, working to 9 points of a cube, which adds eye focus
to the eye movements. I’m starting to notice patterns of calibration from doing
this – including adding distance to the submodalities of the client’s
experience.
I’ve spoken of this with Nigel Hetherington too, and he is
also starting to experiment with this of his own accord. I feel it is worth
putting out there to those who utilise eye movement work with their clients to
see what you notice, what calibrations, what effects. Please report back, and
share your discoveries!
Mixing Eye Movements
With Somatic Therapies
Further still, I have been mixing somatic approaches at the
same time as the eye movement work. Using my adapted version of Ruden’s
Havening process I have been obliterating severe emotion from traumatic events
far quicker. Again, I’m putting this out to get therapists thinking, and also
to get feedback – let me know again what you notice, what calibrations, what
effects. Please give feedback!
