Art Visualisation in the EMDR Psychotherapy Process

In 1878, the Russian physiologist Ivan Tarchanov discovered the fact that psychic states, sensory, affective, emotional, volitional, and even intellectual processes, bring about galvanic deflections. With the use of skin sensors and the electronic recording of bio-data, the emotional journey through the EMDR session could perhaps be used to produce some types of art automatically, without the involvement of the client. Schechner has a body of work, exhibited internationally, that addresses the notion of ‘vicarious trauma’ (Schechner 2015). This notion, that bearing witness to the trauma of another can traumatise us is at the heart of much of his artwork. It is said that to move from a position of terrible life threatening trauma to power to rule over another people without provision put in place for the healing of that trauma can go some way to explaining the cycle of violence apparent in conflicts. Vicarious trauma suggests that this trauma is passed from generation to generation. For example, as the ‘abused’ Israeli state persecutes the Palestinians, the Palestinian ‘abused’ take out their trauma in violent acts against (often innocent) Israelis. So the cycle of abuse continues from one generation to another and from one people to another.