EMDR Therapy
Trauma can profoundly affect the way you see yourself, the world and others.
It can change the way you live and love.
It can change the way you work and create.
It can narrow your choices and confuse safety with being stuck.
EMDR Therapy can help you heal wounds from the past so you can move forward in life with more freedom.
What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy is an extensively researched, effective method that helps people recover from
trauma and other distressing life experiences.
How does EMDR work?
EMDR works by accessing experiences that are stored in the brain and body and revisiting them in the present moment.
When you go through something overwhelming or disturbing your brain and nervous system will remember it to help keep you from being harmed again. While it is part of the brain’s survival mechanism to remember upsetting events, this information can get stuck in your memory networks.
Distressing images, intrusive thoughts, painful body sensations and upsetting emotions may become repeatedly triggered long after the danger has passed. These can create distorted negative self beliefs, cause you to be on alert for danger, or make you easily overwhelmed or numb. In the midst of a traumatic event occurring, your focus may narrow, like tunnel vision, so you are only paying attention to the thing you need to survive.
When this incident is recorded in your memory, some information about what else may have been happening, including things that may have been helpful in that moment, may be forgotten.
EMDR uses eye-movements or other stimuli, such as handheld pulsers or tapping, to stimulate the brain while you are revisiting the traumatic event. Body sensations and thoughts are also noticed. Looking at it in the safety of the present moment, with the guidance of a trained therapist, desensitizes the charge around the event or memory. In this more relaxed state, information that might have been forgotten can be recalled, or new pieces can be added to help make sense of what happened.
Once the memory is fully reprocessed, it can be restored in the memory without the negative charge previously attached to it.
What can EMDR treat?
Utilizing your innate ability to heal, EMDR can provide a life-changing transformation. For many of my clients, it has provided relief after years of trying to address symptoms through traditional talk therapy. Some of challenges I have treated with EMDR include:
Stress, anxiety and PTSD
Childhood trauma, including sexual abuse
Attachment and developmental trauma, such as emotional abuse or neglect
Sexual trauma
Witnessing or experiencing violence, including combat
Experiencing a life threatening situation, such as a car accident, natural disaster, break in, or physical attack
Relationship and intimacy issues
Root causes of substance abuse, addiction and other unhealthy behaviors, such as disorder eating
Intergenerational family trauma
Flashbacks, panic attacks and phobias
Performance anxiety
Dissociation
Grief and loss
Sleep issues
What does an EMDR session look like?
The first thing I want you to know is your safety is key.
EMDR works with your brain’s natural ability to adapt and integrate new information. I will support and guide you, but most importantly, allow your healing process to unfold in the way that is best for you.
This is a collaborative process.
Before we begin processing, I take the time to get to know you, what you have been through and what you want to work on.
From deciding, setting the pace, and always having the option to stop or take a break, you are in control.
As part of the preparation process, I will help you reconnect to the strengths, positive experiences and relationships that have helped you in your life which you may have forgotten, but are still stored in your memory networks and your body. Reconnecting with these resources is an important part of the healing process.
When processing begins, I will ask you to focus on a target memory, bring to mind an image, and notice your body sensations, emotions and thoughts. Then I will add tapping, pulses or eye movements in sets.
At the end of each, I will ask you to notice what you are experiencing in that moment. I may ask you questions to help you keep moving through the process and work through any blocks as they arise. We will keep repeating the process until the disturbing material you were focusing on has lost its charge.
