EMDR Therapy
What Exactly Is EMDR Therapy And How Does It Work?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR therapy, is an evidence-based therapeutic tool used for effectively treating symptoms related to trauma, such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression. When a person is traumatized, their brain undergoes neurological changes that talk therapy cannot fully address on its own. EMDR operates on a neurological level, stimulating your brain’s natural ability to heal itself.
I’ve seen this approach help many people who have otherwise felt stuck in talk therapy. People who have tried other forms of therapy often find they no longer need to work on modifying thoughts, feelings, or behaviors once the root cause is addressed through EMDR.
EMDR therapy gives you a chance to free yourself from triggered responses to trauma that cause pain and disruption in your life. By healing the original wound, you can enjoy healthier relationships, greater peace of mind, and feel safer and more comfortable in the world.
Who Can It Help?
According to the EMDR International Association, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy is an effective, well-researched therapeutic intervention that has been proven to help individuals successfully address the impact of trauma as well as anxiety, depression, panic disorders, and PTSD.
This mind-body approach to healing is helpful for treating symptoms of trauma regardless of the nature of the trauma. “Big T” trauma usually stems from intense, singular events like a bad car accident or violent assault, whereas “little t” trauma usually involves relational or more insidious trauma. That could include being raised by parents who were verbally abusive, battling addiction, or consistently unresponsive to emotional needs. EMDR helps with both.
The effects of “little t” trauma can often look less like PTSD and more like depression, anxiety, or even unexplained, persistent physical pain. Working with an EMDR therapist can be useful for you if you feel stuck after trying to address these issues through talk therapy.
What Does The EMDR Treatment Process Look Like?
Rather than jumping straight into EMDR sessions, we’ll start with talk therapy and make sure you feel completely safe and ready to approach EMDR. We will gain a better understanding of the trauma you have experienced, your emotional triggers, and your responses to them. We will draw on my experience teaching yoga and meditation to provide you with mindfulness techniques, guided imagery resources, and breathing exercises that can help you manage emotions that might arise during your EMDR counseling sessions.
In the first EMDR session, you’ll focus on a negative belief, body sensation, and image associated with the traumatic event before alternating to a positive belief associated with healing and recovery.
While you concentrate on the negative memory or event, you’ll experience several cycles of a form of bilateral brain stimulation, each about a minute long. You’ll have the choice of sound stimulation (using headphones to play alternating sounds in each ear), bilateral eye movement (following a finger or light source), or tactile sensation (using a set of buzzers that alternates sensations from left to right hand). We may also choose to combine two of these forms.
After each cycle, you’ll be asked to notice what comes to mind, how you feel, and what you sense in your body. As the process continues, you might notice shifts in imagery, sensation, thoughts, and beliefs associated with the event.
The cycle of sounds, buzzes, or eye movements along with the subsequent attention to thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations are repeated until the traumatic event and its associations become less disturbing. It’s important to know that you have complete control over the process and the authority to slow things down or stop whenever you need or want to.
EMDR treatment can be integrated into standard talk therapy, It can be a supplement to your traditional counseling sessions with another therapist, or be a stand-alone treatment option. It all depends on your needs and preferences.