What is EMDR?
So you may have heard of EMDR, but are unsure what it actually is. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and is one of the best researched and validated treatments for trauma and mental illness. It is recommended as an effective treatment by the VA, the World Health Organization, the Department of Defense, and the American Psychiatric Association.
Many mental health problems such as anxiety, relationship issues, depression, phobias, and anger arise due to traumatic experiences, especially if they occurred in childhood. These traumas could be be big T trauma’s like sexual abuse, war, natural disasters, domestic violence or they could be little t trauma’s such as being embarrassed at school, a break up, or misattunements with a caregiver growing up. The experience of these unresolved memories is subjective, but the beliefs we take from them about ourselves and our world stay with us. EMDR helps to reprocess unresolved negative memories and replace negative beliefs about ourselves and our world with positive beliefs and associations. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation through eye-movement, sound, or hand held buzzers. This activates the brain’s natural healing system and allows it to process traumatic events and memories in a way that other treatments may not even be able to access. It has been my experience that clients often times make as much progress in an hour of EMDR as they might in months or years in other types of modalities.
Some clients describe the experience of reprocessing negative memories as feeling like a lucid dream or watching a movie of events from their life, and at first these memories might seem vivid and emotional and your chest might feel tight and you might cry, but through this processing these memories fade in intensity and they don’t have the same impact on you emotionally and physically anymore. EMDR also teaches a host of coping skills and can vivify positive memories so that you can feel more in control over your emotional responses.
If you are struggling with emotional or behavioral patterns in your life that feel out of your control or if you often times feel like your past is continually becoming your present, EMDR may be right for you.
