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Francine Shapiro structured her therapy into a rigorous eight-phase programme that could be taught to others
Francine Shapiro structured her therapy into a rigorous eight-phase programme that could be taught to others
Francine Shapiro structured her therapy into a rigorous eight-phase programme that could be taught to others

Francine Shapiro obituary

This article is more than 4 years old

American psychologist who devised the therapy EMDR – eye movement desensitisation reprocessing – for use in the treatment of trauma

The American psychologist Francine Shapiro, who has died aged 71, devised the form of therapy known as eye movement desensitisation reprocessing (EMDR). Having started out as an English teacher, she summed up her life’s work with William Blake’s line: “For the eye altering alters all.”

EMDR, which involves making rapid eye movements to stimulate the brain, assists people in processing traumatic memories. It has helped millions worldwide, including many with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Shapiro overcame opposition to make it a mainstream therapy, after its efficacy had been demonstrated in more than 40 randomised controlled trials. It is now practised in around 30 countries and endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the NHS and many other bodies.

While working in New York in the late 1970s, Shapiro was diagnosed with breast cancer. After recovering, she sold her possessions and crossed the country in a camper van.

Once she reached California, she settled in the tiny rural community of Sea Ranch, on the coast north of San Francisco. A succession of jobs led to her teaching a course in communication at San José State University.

She had become interested in health, especially in the interaction between mind and body, and on a walk in May 1987 noticed her eyes moving rapidly from side to side, while at the same time disturbing thoughts in her head became less intrusive. She said: “The thoughts weren’t as bothersome. I wanted to see if it would work if it was deliberate, so I brought up something that bothered me, moved my eyes in the same way and saw the same thing happening.”

The eye movements’ effect became the subject of a PhD undertaken at the Californian School of Professional Psychology, San Diego, and Shapiro found that it was just as therapeutic for Vietnam veterans plagued with traumatic memories. Speaking about one man, she said: “The memory had haunted him for 20 years. Seeing it disappear was just wonderful.”

Shapiro structured her therapy into a rigorous eight-phase programme that could be taught to others. In 1988, concerned about the effects of 40 years’ war on people’s mental health, she moved to Israel and gave workshops, as she also did in the US. Later that year she gained her PhD, and in 1989 published a study in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.

The EMDR “bible” – Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing: Basic Principles, Protocols and Procedures – followed in 1995. That year, too, she received a phone call asking for help in the aftermath of the Oklahoma bombing, which killed 168 people and traumatised thousands more. The result was the EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Program. There are now over 60 “trauma recovery networks” with practitioners offering free EMDR to people affected by disasters.

Early on, Shapiro was mortified to learn that someone had been harmed by EMDR administered by a hypnotist with no training in the therapy. She insisted that, to be accredited, practitioners had to take part in an approved workshop rather than learning it informally from other people or from an article.

It was also important for research purposes that practitioners followed standard protocols. However, her insistence on proper training led to accusations of profiteering. Sceptics also described the therapy as “atheoretical” and the eye movements as “superfluous”.

Her response was to work hard to prove EMDR’s credentials and ensure professional standards were adhered to. She set up an ethics committee and an EMDR professional network, and was gratified when in 2013 the WHO approved EMDR for use in treating PTSD and other mental health disorders.

Shapiro theorised that EMDR might work because it mimicked eye movements during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is known to be a time when the brain is processing memories. The “working memory” theory has also been posited. According to this, when a person thinks of an upsetting memory while at the same time tracking a therapist’s rapidly moving fingers with their eyes, the working memory part of the brain has to process a great deal of information at once. As a result, the disturbing memory may start to blur and lose its emotional charge.

Derek Farrell, a lecturer on EMDR at Worcester University, has pointed to its capacity for allowing people to “step in and step out of the trauma”. It particularly suits those who might find putting their experiences into words uncomfortable: “Some people, such as the Yazidis in Iraq, for example, who experienced sex slavery, might not want to disclose these horrors.”

Born in Brooklyn, Francine was the daughter of Dan, who managed a garage and a fleet of taxis, and his wife, Shirley. The death of her younger sister Debra at the age of nine affected Francine deeply.

She received a BA (1968) and an MA (1974) in English literature from Brooklyn College and taught at Stuyvesant high school. She had embarked on a PhD in 19th-century literature and the poetry of Thomas Hardy when cancer intervened.

In the late 1990s she married Bob Welch, a psychologist. Intensely private, she read every paper published on EMDR and often contributed her own funds to EMDR initiatives.

Despite a second cancer diagnosis, she travelled to conferences until a few years ago. Her work has been continued by the EMDR Institute in the US and by the EMDR Association UK and Ireland.

She is survived by her husband.

Francine Shapiro, psychologist, born 18 February 1948; died 16 June 2019

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