EMDR

How does EMDR work?

EMDR therapy assists the brain in processing these memories and allows natural healing to resume. The treatment method does not erase the experience; however, you can resolve the uncomfortable fight, flight, or freeze response from the originating event, and the unpleasant symptoms go away.

It is essential to understand how EMDR therapy is different from other treatments. EMDR does not require talking in detail about the distressing details or homework between sessions. EMDR does not focus on changing the emotions, thoughts, or behaviors resulting from the painful event, but allows and assists the brain to resume its natural healing process, called integration.

EMDR therapy is integrative psychotherapy and uses a technique called bilateral stimulation to activate opposite sides of the brain repeatedly. These eye movements mimic the rapid eye movement or REM period of sleep, and researchers consider this portion of sleep the time when the mind processes the recent events in the person’s life.

EMDR seems to help the brain reprocess the trapped memories is such a way that normal information processing is resumed. Therapists often use EMDR to help clients uncover and process beliefs that developed as a result of relational traumas of childhood abuse and neglect. What does EMDR help?

EMDR is helpful when combined with other treatment modalities and was originally established as helpful for PTSD, although it’s been proven useful for treatment in the following conditions:

  • Anxiety

  • Panic Attacks

  • Stress Reduction

  • Disturbing Memories

  • Complicated Grief

  • Dissociative Orders

  • Phobias

  • Pain Disorders

  • Performance Anxiety

  • Addictions

  • Stress Reduction

  • Sexual and/or Physical Abuse

These symptoms or experiences may also fit you?

Have you ever experience distressing emotions that others notice as well, that tends to be excessive, given the presenting situation? Or, do you tend to be highly reactive to specific triggers and unwanted memories? Maybe there are dysfunctional beliefs that you believe about yourself that on an intellectual level, you know are not true, which are making daily living difficult. I

f so, you may still be a good candidate for EMDR therapy. Contact me today so we can schedule an appointment to see if EMDR might help you release what no longer serves you.