EMPOWERMENT SCRIPT
Dr Lowen Clarke
Join the Reading Revolution
EMPOWERMENT SCRIPT
Dr Lowen Clarke
Join the Reading Revolution
About Empowerment Script
Empowerment Script (EMPS) is a form of reading that replicates a well established therapeutic technique called EMDR. EMDR is an acronym for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing and is a psychotherapeutic treatment used for managing and treating the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is regrettably an increasingly all too familiar condition caused by the incomplete processing of past traumatic events. EMDR was designed as a methodology for reprocessing these traumas, allowing those with PTSD, to work through their trauma, develop a sense of closure of the past and begin to look forward to a more fulfilling future.
EMDR, as the name suggests, is about rhythmic stimulation of a range of sensory inputs. Visual stimulation is the most frequently applied stimulant for its ease of generation in a clinical environment. It also lends its name to the whole suite of sensory input driven therapeutic processes. In a therapeutic environment, eye movements are generated by the therapist who provides a series of movements that attract the eyes, stimulating lateral back and forth rhythmical eye movements.
This rhythmical stimulation is known therapeutically as Bi-lateral Stimulation. This form of stimulation makes possible a number of highly beneficial outcomes. These outcomes include a decreased physiological arousal that supports a more relaxed state of mind. A less aroused state enables an observable increase in attentional flexibility. This is characterised by an increased flow and fluidity of an individual’s thinking. Obstructive thoughts and thought patterns become less so. They become more fluid and capable of change, and importantly, very much less burdensome. Those obstructive thoughts that were once in the foreground of the mind’s eye now seem less pressing and more remote. They appear as though gently moved to the mid or background of the mind’s eye. This reduction of feelings of immediate and pressing obstruction produces a marked sense of release of worry and pressure.
Empowerment Script replicates the lateral eye movements generated in EMDR. It does this by gently directing the eyes backwards and forwards as they follow printed words in a line of text.
Before you start to read the two lines of text below, just take a moment out to centre yourself and reflect on how you are feeling - then start to read the first line. As you read, try and be aware of how you feel as you read the words and comprehend the meaning. What is your reader experience of this first line? When you are ready, read the second line. Now compare that to your first experience. What was your experience? Did you notice how you had to work just that little bit harder to read it.
The diagram below illustrates the eye movements driven by reading a line of plain script followed by those driven by reading a line of empowerment script.
This simple graphic illustration demonstrates the ease, or resting mode, with which we read plain script. It also demonstrates the more challenging and complex working mode entailed in reading the Empowerment Script line. Reading Empowerment Script generates the desirable bi-lateral eye movements of EMDR. It also demands and consumes extra concentration and processing power providing the altered focus or distraction required as part of the EMDR process.
In all therapeutic situations, there is a comfortable combination of working mode followed by a resting mode. Empowerment Script replicates this working mode and resting mode combination. A line of ‘resting’ plain script is followed by a line of ‘working’ Empowerment Script, then returning to resting plain script. This continues throughout the body of the text making for a more comfortable reading experience.
The characters are generous individuals who are easily liked and engagement with them flows naturally. With their easy going natures, and their calm activity it is a delightful experience for all readers to suspend reality for a few minutes of the day and be carried along on this narrative journey.
Below is an example of Empowerment Script.
This example text is animated to emphasise the therapeutic eye movements that are an active element of EMDR therapy.
One day on the way to the office
!BANG
.crash
car
small
a
witnessed
I
EMPS text works in conjunction with affirming coloured illustrations that generate a positive reading environment in which the EMDR component can be most effective. The simple engaging illustrations support a real emotional engagement with the narrative. The illustrations present an emotionally calm and supportive world for the reader to enter. This emotional fictional world is receptive to adaptive thinking. Their homespun familiarity and comfortable continuity make a stable context against which the narrative changes can unfurl.
