Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy approach designed to help us process and integrate traumatic memories. Our brains can routinely manage new information and experiences, but when something happens and we are traumatized by it, the distressing experience gets stuck in our brain and does not get processed in the way any other event would. Unprocessed memories and emotions are stored in the limbic system of our brain in their raw form, meaning during times when we experience events similar to the difficult experiences we have been through, we feel the experience happening all over again as if it were ocurring in real time. We might feel even more panic, anxiety, or despair when this happens, and it can be really unsettling and debilitating in our daily lives.
In an EMDR session, your therapist recreates eye movements similar to those during REM sleep or uses another form of bilateral stimulation while you, the client, recalls a distressing memory (one you and your therapist have previously identified as a target memory for EMDR processing). The eye movements last for a short while and then stop. In between these sets, you will be asked to notice thoughts, feelings, images, memories, or sensations that come to mind. You will notice that with time, these will begin to shift. With repeated sets, the memory tends to change in a way that it loses its emotional charge and becomes a neutral memory of the event. The memory is not erased, but the painful intensity associated with it will be significantly reduced.
In addition to helping process traumatic events, EMDR also helps to process memories and experiences that have created negative beliefs about ourselves and the world, consequently creating painful emotional reactions to everyday things. These negative beliefs, such as feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem, affect how we see ourselves and how we interact in our relationships. EMDR aims to help us develop healthier beliefs about ourselves and our experiences, ultimately fostering healing and resilience.
In addition to treating PTSD, EMDR has been successfully used to treat:
anxiety and panic attacks
depression
stress
performance anxiety
phobias
sleep problems
complicated grief
pain relief
feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem
A few weekly EMDR therapy sessions (90 minutes) and/or EMDR intensive sessions (3-6 hours) can help address and heal the root of the symptoms you are experiencing. EMDR can be brief focused treatment or part of a longer therapy treatment plan.
If you are interested in learning more about how EMDR might help you or your child, call or text me at 407-821-5923 for a free phone consultation and how I can help.
