Interestingly, this question can be answered with the answer to a different question. Which type of therapy is best? Back in the 70s they wanted to answer this question. They did their research and ended up with a surprising result: no therapy seemed to be more effective than another. This was referred to as the Dodo Bird Verdict (like in Alice in Wonderland): “Everybody has won and all must have prizes”. The results of this research helped us to understand the common factors that made therapy effective. The three keys to therapy are “Accurate Empathy, Genuineness, and Unconditional Positive Regard”. These are the attributes a therapist must have to cause change in their clients. You have to know and feel that your therapist cares about you, that they truly hear you, and that they are not judging you. If these conditions are met, then change can happen. There are barriers to this as well, but good therapy will overcome them in time by accurately identifying the client’s difficulties with vulnerability and authenticity in the present moment. A research article that I have been unable to relocate, sadly, referred to therapy as a “social healing ritual”. I think that this is a perfect description of what is happening in therapy.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has been around for quite some time now, starting in the late 80s. It has become more popular now as the public acceptance of PTSD and Complex PTSD is improving. The mechanisms by which it works are claimed to not be fully understood. One could speculate that the movement of fingers or a lightbar back and forth repeatedly is not dissimilar to a pendulating stopwatch. Quite possibly, EMDR involves a low intensity hypnosis that leaves you in a mostly conscious state. This hypnotic effect impedes the conditioned responses that a history of trauma would normally evoke when triggered and allows a moment for a more adaptive response to take the place of the conditioned response.