Audrey Cook – Shortly after initial training in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, was using EMDR with clients and having excellent results, particularly with single incident traumas. She had never found a tool so useful for trauma and, to a lesser extent, for compulsive behaviour. She had a client who had one eye that was focused differently than the other. Because she had a background in Educational Kinesiology, she was familiar with the concept of hemispheric integration in the brain. As she experimented with those ideas, she found this integration proved very useful for many of her clients. She found that OEI techniques were gentler for those individuals, and that some of these tools could be used without a therapist present. Tapping techniques are also very helpful, and she uses EMDR, tapping, TAT, and OEI together, or separately.
Rick Bradshaw – Dr. Bradshaw began experimenting with OEI while employed as the Senior Psychologist and Director of Training at Simon Fraser University Counselling Service. Audrey had innovated the three main OEI techniques of “Switching”, “Sweeping”, and “Glitch Massaging”, and he found these techniques great additions to his EMDR practice, particularly for clients with Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders. Over the 12 years since then, I have continued to develop and refine these techniques with Audrey, and discovered “release points” for relief from chest compression (hyperventilation & cessation of breathing), throat constriction (often associated with panic attacks) and nausea. I’ve also completed 3 studies of OEI, including 2 controlled experiments (the last one is an 18 month comparative outcome study just completed in June 2006).
Our work is quite often different, so OEI techniques developed along two streams, to reflect these two client groups. We have found that OEI techniques are helpful for early-onset, multiple-trauma clients and for more typical therapy clients who do not struggle with dissociation or PTSD.
For more detailed information about OEI (origins & history, techniques, applications, neurobiological mechanisms, and case examples), please refer to the June 2011 article in the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration.