Overcoming pain based on EMDR

Mark Grant

About this app

“Overcoming pain based on EMDR” was brought to you by Mark Grant, well known Australian psychologist/researcher and writer. Mark is particularly interested in developing resources that sufferers of pain and stress can use to make a real difference in their suffering. He is motivated to do what works best for his clients rather than what the ‘accepted wisdom’ might say. But he maintains a scientific approach and has conducted several studies regarding the efficacy of EMDR as a treatment for chronic pain.

“Overcoming pain based on EMDR” mobile application is using recent discoveries from brain science to alleviate chronic pain and severe stress.

The application comprises 3 playlists for controlling pain and associated stress that can maintain pain.

Each playlist is designed with different goals in mind. Where the first playlist called “Mental Healing strategies” is aimed to alleviate mild or moderate chronic pain, the second playlist called “Sensory Healing strategies” will help when you are too tired, sore or distressed to employ the pain pathway strategy from the first playlist. And the last playlist called “Stress Management” is focused on reducing your stressful feelings that can maintain and exacerbate chronic pain.

The playlists are designed to compliment each other; so if your pain is severe using the strategies in “Sensory Healing strategies” should help bring it under control enough for you to benefit from the tracks in “Mental Healing strategies” and listening to the “Stress Management” tracks regularly, when your pain is tolerable, will bring your overall stress levels down and decrease the pain-related activity in your body and your brain. The tracks in “Mental Healing strategies” and “Stress management” can be listened to anywhere anytime, but the tracks in “Sensory Healing strategies” require external materials and preparation.

One of the key elements of this app is bilateral stimulation (bls), which is derived from EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). In conjunction with focused attention bls uses sensory stimulation to change physical emotional and cognitive processes associated with chronic pain (as well as trauma and stress).

For best results you should listen to the tracks that incorporate bls with headphones or hear-buds. You can use the app anytime anywhere but a quiet environment when you don’t feel too overwhelmed by stress or physical discomfort is best.

If you don’t get the response you expect when listening to the tracks never force yourself or get frustrated, just relax and trust that the relief you are seeking will happen sooner or later.

While every effort has been made to provide a genuinely useful resource this app should not be considered a substitute for professional advice or treatment. In addition to standard medical care you should at the consider seeking psychotherapy, improving your diet, exercising regularly etc.
For curious minds there’s a number of articles presented in the application where you can read more about both EMDR and chronic pain and bilateral stimulation healing effect.
You can also read more about chronic pain and how to overcome it from the Mark Grant’s book called “Change Your Brain Change Your Pain” which you can also order by following the link in “Overcoming pain based on EMDR” placed under “Other Resources” section.

Ratings and reviews

This app has great potential, but there is one huge problem for me. The embedded media player is crude to the point of almost making the app useless. There need to be 10-second rewind and fast forward buttons, plus the ability to drag the progress bar with your finger. This should be baseline. Also the layout of the app is awkward. There is no home page. Don't need Recently Played in huge display across the top. The rest of the front page is promos. Do need clear links to content and features.

I blissed out the first time I used it. I was at the end of a really difficult week of an endo flare up and nothing had worked. I needed to sleep and was on the verge of tears because I was so tired of being in pain. I used Anaesthix Mist and I would drift in and out of bliss. The other recordings are not as effective for me, but maybe you can find one that works for you. I do wish the recordings could be set to repeat, or turn off with a timer, like podcasts.

I had a significant initial hickup with this App as, after one week of installing, I could not access the Playlists and instead got a typical gobbledygook IT message (IT is a significant SECONDARY source of my chronic discomfort!)"Chain SOMETHING Error"! A cause of yet more pain, rather than less. HOWEVER with 24 hours of contacting their site, Mark Grant the creator and proprietor himself had emailed me with unequivocal accecceptance of the problem AND total assaurance that it would be rectified absolutely ASAP. As indeed it was, with a further 24 hours. With commitment and integrity like that from the App's creator themselves, in tandem with the excellent quality of the App and it's otherwise easy to use functionality, the least I can give it is the maximum FIVE STAR rating.

What's new

-- SDK updated
-- AndroidX updates