Calibration and Retesting in IEMT – The British Board of Integral Eye Movement Therapy (IEMT)

PRACTITIONER SKILLS

Observing delivery accurately and checking the client’s response without supplying the conclusion.

For trained practitioners working within the procedures and professional requirements applicable to their practice.

Two related tasks

Calibration concerns the practitioner’s observation of the person’s actual response during the procedure. Retesting concerns what happens when the relevant experience is accessed again. Both depend on attention to what is present, rather than what the practitioner expects to find.

The client’s description and the practitioner’s observation provide different information. A change in facial expression can be observed, but its emotional meaning is established with the client. The observation alone does not establish a reduction in distress.

Establish a clear starting point

Before comparing responses, identify the experience being compared. In the kinaesthetic pattern, the initial feeling, its strength and the remembered occasion are distinguished. Vividness describes the memory as accessed; emotional intensity describes the reported feeling.

Starting point	Preserve for review
The feeling	The client’s description and initial intensity.
The remembered occasion	Enough identifying context to return to the same memory.
The memory’s presentation	The reported vividness or other relevant description.
The focus of attention	What the person was asked to hold in mind during the procedure.

Observe the movements actually made

Moving a target through the intended path and observing the eyes follow it are separate tasks. Calibration includes whether the client is following, the path actually followed and any deviation or interruption.

The horizontal and diagonal forms belong to memory work; the figure of eight belongs to the identity procedure. Direction, pace, range and positioning are aspects of the trained delivery. A static diagram shows a form but does not prescribe all of those parameters.

The Association requires a pace the person can track comfortably and continuing attention to visual comfort. Loss of tracking, withdrawal of consent, significant distress or a concerning symptom requires the procedure to stop.

Describe before interpreting

“Tracking stopped at this point” is an observation. It does not establish a neurological mechanism, a hidden memory or a wish to avoid change.

Retest in the relevant sequence

Return to the memory

Return to the original feeling

Describe the current response

In the kinaesthetic pattern, the memory is revisited first. The person reports how it presents now. Attention then returns to the original feeling to establish whether and how it can be accessed.

These are separate checks. A memory may seem less vivid without the person reporting the same degree of change in feeling. Conversely, the feeling may be less intense while details of the event remain available.

The review concerns the same reference. If attention has moved from an anticipated event to an earlier memory, the report about that memory does not by itself establish a change in anticipation.

When another emotion comes into prominence

A person may initially report guilt and subsequently report anger or anxiety. This is different from saying that the guilt remains but is less intense. Retesting distinguishes a change in degree from a change in the nature of the experience.

The newly reported feeling is elicited in its own terms. It may lead to the same remembered occasion or to another one. Guilt, anger and anxiety are not assumed to follow a fixed order; the work follows the person’s actual report.

Review identity work on its own terms

After identity work, return to the same self-reference and elicit its location, age and surrounding context again. Compare the client’s descriptions and establish what the difference means to them.

A younger reported age or an unexpected location is not automatically an error to correct. Likewise, a movement towards the practitioner’s expectation is not itself evidence of a useful outcome.

Record the limits of the conclusion

A session record can state what changed when the experience was re-accessed and what remained unchanged or uncertain. It should specify when that review occurred. A later follow-up is a further observation, not something implied by the immediate response.

No change, mixed change and worsening belong in the record. The client must remain free to give those answers, and subsequent decisions should reflect them.