The many traumas in real life and documentary film maker Michael Burns

JAN BROGAN - I might have mentioned once or twice that I had a debilitating plane phobia for many years. I would hyperventilate during takeoff, my palms would sweat, and once I even broke down crying. I tried just about everything. Drinking - didn't even touch it. Six weeks of hypnosis at Mass General Hospital was completely useless; desensitization tapes - even more useless, and psychiatrist-prescribed drugs - totally freaked me out. Cognitive behavioral therapy helped, but only a little.

Finally, I tried a new therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which involved bilateral stimulation (either by eye movement or alternating tones) during treatment. As a health reporter, I'd been assigned to write about this therapy by an editor, and although I first refused, calling it "snake oil," I later learned just how extensively researched and tested this therapy really was and about its tremendous success treating returning combat veterans suffering from Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Somewhere in the literature it mentioned it had some success with phobias, so I decided to give it a try.

After being burdened this incredibly resistant phobia for something close to 25 years, I was completely cured in about six sessions. For me, it was a miracle. In subsequent stories I've written on this topic, I've talked to returning veterans, rape victims and child abuse survivors who have told me their own miraculous recovery stories.

So.... in what is definitely outside the box for Jungle Red, but in hopes of reaching the quarter million combat veterans who return with PTSD and other people suffering from other life traumas - whether its loss of a loved one, a divorce or even a minor car accident, I invited filmmaker Michael Burns to JR to talk about his documentary "EMDR, We either transform pain or we transmit it."

Michael is a native of Connecticut, is the producer/director of four films on American politics, Third Party, Preventive Warriors, Majority Rules, and Laban. I asked him how he got from politics to EMDR.

MichaelBurns: It was 2007 and I was completing my doctorate in film at the University of Birmingham in the UK when I had EMDR myself. I had come across it in the late David Servan-Schreiber's best-seller Healing without Freud or Prozac. When I had a breakthrough myself- and this shows you how much I sympathize with skeptics- I chalked it entirely up to coincidence. In other words, I was convinced that the EMDR I had had just activated some psychosomatic reaction on my part. I remember thinking that there's no way something so weird could have helped me. Simply out of curiosity I started to do some research on it and found out that in fact millions of people have had massively life-changing experiences with EMDR. So I ate up everything I could find on the subject, realizing that the catharsis I went through was not so unusual after all.

At about that time, a good friend suggested I make a documentary about EMDR since it still was hardly known at all in the mainstream. Completing my degree, which took a lot out of me, I didn't think I had the energy for a new project, but it kept popping up in the back of my mind as something that needed to be made. In the end, it was the daily bombardment with PTSD stories in the news that made me realize that I wanted to do whatever I could to help spread the word about this amazing therapy. There are so many people out there who believe that they're destined to live with the pain, body sensations, and nightmares that are grounded in things from their pasts. It's just not true. EMDR can help many of them, perhaps most of them.

JAN: How long did it take to produce the documentary and what was the biggest obstacle?

MICHAEL: I worked on it, pretty much with just my cameraman, James Kloter, for a little over three years.

The biggest obstacle was getting people to tell us their personal stories. A friend of mine put it very well the other day when she said that it's hard enough to go to therapy in the first place, relaying those details to yet another person is nearly impossible for most people. I think she's exactly right. What happens in EMDR sessions is both deeply personal and extremely hard to put into words. So, on a low budget, it became tough for us to find compelling, personal success stories to put in the movie. In the end though, we found three that did make it in, and they might just be the best parts of the film.

JAN: Your hopes for this film?

MICHAEL: I sincerely hope that people will watch this film and get in touch with that one person in their lives- maybe it's a husband, a sister, or a friend of a friend- whose ability to reach their full potential is being held back by something that happened in their past, and to tell them about EMDR. Next step is to go to the emdria.org website and to find a therapist nearby or to get in touch with emdrhap.org to talk about sessions they're offering. It's critical that people go see someone with proper training, certified by the main national EMDR professional organization, EMDRIA.

So helping those who are in critical mental condition is one of my key hopes. Having said that, EMDR is not just for the person we might know who's paralyzed by the past. I always say that it would be a miracle if any of us have sailed through life without anything traumatic happening to us. There are things in all of our histories that are holding us back, preventing us from living life the way we want to. Therefore all of us can use EMDR so that we can put disturbing memories to rest, breaking destructive habits we have and living the lives we dream of living.

JAN: In that vein, Michael has generously sent me one free copy of the film, the DVD, to give away to a lucky winner. It's one of the best explanations I've encountered on how the brain processes trauma, why it sticks in the head for years, and why EMDR can shake it free and is very moving.

Enter by posting a comment and/or signing up for our mailing list -- I need an email address to reach the winner. But please, enter only if know someone (and it can be you) who it can help. The winner will also be announced on JR by Tuesday.

For more information about EMDR or the film go to: http://emdrmovie.com

And me without my travel taser

JAN: Since this is the time EVERYONE goes away, I'm sticking with the travel theme. Yesterday was why we travel. Today is why travel can make us nuts.

And since airline travel is a pretty good punching bag, I decided to focus on that.

I only recently overcame a twenty year plane phobia that made flying torture. I was so grateful to ditch my imagined fears that I never focused on the very real irritations that drive so many other people crazy. But reading Time Magazine's piece: "'20 Reasons to Hate the Airline Industry: or the brief history of the industry's 30 year campaign to nickel-and-dime us nearly to death," I found a new trend in the airline industry that could make me wish I was still too phobic to fly.

The CUT IN LINE FEE.

As I see it, so far the airline industry has only managed to come up with novel fees that make you hate the airline industry. In this latest burst of creativity, they've come up with a new fee that will make you hate the other passengers.

Imagine this: One of those really long lines you find at about six a.m. when you are headed to the Caribbean in the winter. Let's pretend you've been foolish and booked this flight during school vacation week. And let's say, you're re not one of those diligent people who get to the airport two hours early no matter what and are running late. You're three quarters deep into the line and time is running out.

You're tired because its so early, you haven't had your coffee, and you're irritated by hauling too much luggage. Plus, you bought your tickets on a whim and suspect you paid 20 percent more than everyone else. Finally, you move up the line, and with only five minutes left until boarding, it's your turn at the counter. Suddenly, a well-to-do family of six, each with two pieces of luggage and their own scuba equipment, cuts in line and takes your place. You say, "Excuse me, I was next." They completely ignore you, which they are allowed to do because they paid their $30 cut in line fee.

Maybe three other people get to step ahead of you to the open counters. Maybe you find yourself seated in front of one of them when you finally board your airplane. Maybe you ram your seat back as far as it goes and start humming "One Way or Another," by Blondie. Maybe you prefer "My Aim is True" by Elvis Costello. But you get the picture, we're talking about air rage.

My husband tells me that Southwest Airlines has had a version of the cut in line fee for a while, with the ability to "buy up" into the A line. They made the process confusing enough that most other passengers couldn't figure it out.

But I think the cut-in-line fee will surely get people killed in New York. And what's next? The Go-ahead-talk-too-loud-on-your-cell-phone-fee? The-don't-wait-your-turn for the bathroom fee? The drink-too-much and-knock-your-legs-into the nearest passenger fee? The possibilities for rude behavior revenue are endless.

Check out the Time article at:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2002620_2002604_2002611,00.html

And come back tomorrow when I'll be interviewing Jennifer Delahunty, the dean of admissions of Kenyon College, and author of a new collection of essays about how the college admissions process makes parents crazy.

Tagged Three

"Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools..." Aretha Franklin

Tagged by Nancy Pickard, I'm number three on the list, followed by Ro and Hank, who all must tell seven facts about themselves.

Here are Jan's facts.

1. Unlike Hallie, I've never wanted to be a torch singer, and cleavage just seemed too big of a dream, but I've actually sung before a crowd of one thousand, a solo even, a couple of times, although not an entire song. I did this without fear, oddly enough. But that's because all the performers were all newspaper reporters and the crowd (At the annual Providence Journal Follies) had low expectations.

2. I ran away from home once -- at about age fourteen -- by ripping my bed sheet in half, tying it together to make a rope, and shimmying down from my second story window. I stayed away for three days. My poor parents.

3. I am the youngest of four. The three older being brothers. This means that unlike Roberta, I could not be bossy. No one would have listened to me if I tried. I also never understand when people are sensitive to "being told what to do." You can always just ignore anyone bossing you around. That's how you survive when you are the youngest.

4. I spent more than twenty years struggling with a very severe plane phobia. I tried hypnosis, desensitization, cognitive behavioral therapy, dry martinis, and all sorts of prescribed drugs. I finally conquered the phobia two years ago. I now fly all the time! Yeah me!

5. I play tennis five times a week. I also play acoustic guitar. Both involve equipment that demands regular restringing. Also a fifteen-minute warm up before you are any good.

6. I'm almost five feet ten. I started smoking cigarettes at thirteen because they warned it would stunt growth. I actually think it worked. My brothers were 6'6'' 6'4'' and 6'2''.

(I quit in my twenties)

7. I would have loved to have met Marilyn Monroe, but hey, I did interview Patty Duke once. You could tell she had been an actress from a very young age.