EMDR Therapy
Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose
What is EMDR Therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy assists individuals in healing from trauma or other distressing life experiences. In EMDR therapy, your therapist will ask you to identify the specific event that caused the trauma. Next, you will be prompted to think about that upsetting event. While this is happening, your therapist will encourage “bi-lateral” (back and forth) eye-movement by using sounds, taps to each side of the body or moving their hand back and forth in front of you. That’s really it. You will think about a distressing situation while your therapist waves their hand back and forth.
Does it sound weird? Yes. Does it work? Absolutely!
Research shows that bi-lateral eye movement, the same eye movements you experience when dreaming in REM sleep. Creating an environment for your brain to more quickly process thoughts, feelings, and memories. The bi-lateral movement tricks your brain into using the right (creative side) and left (logical side) hemispheres at the same time. Our brains do not function in this capacity during verbal processing, which is why EMDR therapy is much more effective than traditional talk therapy in certain circumstances. EMDR therapy allows our brains to resume it’s natural healing process by working through unprocessed events.
The goal of EMDR treatment is to rapidly metabolize the dysfunctional residue from the past and transform it into something useful.
How EMDR is Different
EMDR does not require you to verbally talk about the memory or image that is troubling. This can be particularly useful when treating trauma. Often, those who have been in trauma situations struggle to talk about the details of an event. Rather than verbally processing, it focuses on changing the emotions, thoughts, or behaviors related to the distressing issue or memory. Which allows your mind to heal from the incident.
The design of EMDR therapy is to neutralize the distress related to negative or traumatic memories. It also differs in that it does not require homework or processing between sessions. In a successful EMDR session, you may state afterward, “I don’t like that I had to go through that event, but it no longer causes me distress to think about.” You can expect to have little or no distress when images, thoughts, sounds, or feelings related to the event are recalled. After completion of EMDR therapy, you will still be able to remember the event however, it should be much less upsetting, if at all
EMDR with Children and Adolescents
EMDR therapy is also effective for children and adolescents. The treatment will be the same but slightly modified to allow for the developmental level of the patient. Your therapist will first help to identify the issue; work on creating coping skills and then work through the event using the bi-lateral eye movement. EMDR helps children and adolescents to create healthy coping skills and increases their feelings of self-esteem, success and calmness.
More on EMDR Research
Research indicates that EMDR therapy is an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress or trauma like stress. However, researchers and clinicians have also found EMDR to be effective in reducing or eliminating symptoms associated with:
- Panic attacks
- Complicated grief
- Phobias
- Panic disorders
- Stress
- Addiction
- Body dysmorphic disorders
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
At reTHINK Therapy, we want to help you utilize EMDR therapy to heal from trauma or other distressing life experiences. Helping you stop surviving and start living.