How EMDR Works in Healing Trauma
There are many forms of treatment and psychotherapy. I’m a believer in having an open mind in trying almost all the different modalities to find what works best for you individually. With the right treatment, you can find healing. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a modality that I most definitely needed an open mind to try. As it turned out, EMDR has been one of the more helpful forms of treatment I have encountered in healing from my childhood trauma.
What Is EMDR?
The initials for EMDR stand for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a type of psychotherapy treatment that is intended to relieve stress and other negative feelings caused by traumatic memories. EMDR was once used primarily for people who struggled with problems related to post-traumatic stress disorder. But EMDR is now successfully used for anyone who suffers from the effects of any type of traumatic event – from an abusive marriage to an assault or accident. EMDR can also help people whether they lived through the event or witnessed it happen to someone else. First responders, for instance, often rely on EMDR to process the traumatic scenes they witness as part of their jobs.
How Was EMDR Therapy Discovered?
In 1987 a young graduate student of psychology, Francine Shapiro serendipitously discovered EMDR Therapy while literally walking in a park. No kidding! She was walking along and noticed that some upsetting thoughts and feelings had suddenly disappeared. As a graduate student studying psychology she was intrigued and decided to research what had happen to her more closely. She began experimenting while walking and observed that when she moved her eyes rapidly back and forth while thinking of something disturbing, the disturbance began to go away. She eventually developed a protocol that could be duplicated and studied, which is now known as EMDR Therapy (or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy).
What is an EMDR Session Like?
When you’re in an EMDR session, the therapist will lead you in various sets physical movements back and forth from left to right. Most therapist will do this with eye movements either having you watch their fingers moving or watching a moving light bar. Some therapists will also use physical touch cues such as alternating buzzers in each hand or by tapping on your knees. During this session of back and forth movements, what you’ll be doing is focusing on the traumatic event and on any emotional problems or thoughts that are associated with the event. This back and forth eye movement will help you learn to alter your responses to memories or triggers associated with whatever it was that you went through.
While the same techniques are used, there can be slight variations. Some therapists will use music during EMDR sessions while some choose not to. The reason that music is used is because music is another way to stimulate your senses and help guide you to being able to alter your responses.
Other therapists will also teach certain body movements, like having you drum your fingers or tap your toes because these movements work to stimulate your senses. If you’ve lived through several traumatic events, the therapist will target each one of these separately to work through them. You will also probably take breaks from the back and forth movement during the session to allow feelings to come up or to process thoughts with the therapist.
By taking breaks and focusing on one memory or trauma at a time, you won’t feel overwhelmed with emotion or receive a trigger overload. The therapist will then help you work through the remaining traumas.
When anyone experiences a trauma, it can cause several different emotional responses. What EMDR can help you do is process these events. By processing them, you gain a better way to deal with these different emotions.
EMDR therapy doesn’t use the homework and other techniques used by other therapies. The purpose behind EMDR techniques is to help you leave the sessions feeling empowered by the traumatic events rather than terrified or afraid to face them.
The length of the sessions and treatment plan will differ by clients because of the wide range of emotional responses to different events.
Almost any Problem Can Be Helped by EMDR
Aside from obvious extreme traumatic experiences such as rape, sexual or physical assault or abuse, or being the victim of a crime, there are many other problems and symptoms that can be handled by using the teachings of EMDR.
- Death of someone close
- Witnessing death
- House Fire
- Other natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes
- Car Accident
- Debilitating Phobias
- Divorce – yours, your parents
EMDR is about working through distressing thoughts and feelings. Thus emotional issues – such as depression, anxiety, overwhelming fears, phobias, and low self-esteem can also be treated with EMDR.
The problems you have don’t have to be extreme to use EMDR for treatment. You can find help for working through relationship problems. You can also learn how to overcome things like test anxiety or panic attacks. If you feel that you have something that’s holding you back in your personal or professional life, you can contact an EMDR therapist about it.
Part of what makes EMDR so effective for those suffering from difficult events is the way that it explores positivity versus negativity. During EMDR treatment, you’ll learn how to look at yourself through a different light.
How Does EMDR Work?
EMDR helps you work through traumatic events and process them in a new way. For many people who experience a trauma, they don’t actually deal with it at that time. Instead, they compartmentalize the traumatic event or events as a method of survival.
Often, during a traumatic event, shock will set in that will prevent the person from being able to process the event. It isn’t until after the event is over that the person has the time to realize what happened and how traumatic the even or events actually were.
Those who are victims of childhood abuse will sometimes repress those emotions and feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness. It isn’t until they’re adults and have the freedom to explore these feelings that they’re suddenly faced with having to learn how to cope with them.
EMDR works by going back into the past and learning how to deal with those emotions and feelings in a safe place. The treatment allows you to forge new links between the memories and your present environment. The ultimate goal of EMDR is to help those who have been through traumatic events to lead healthier and more positive lives.
EMDR works to help eliminate stress associated with the traumatic event and teaches you how to overcome triggers and negative thoughts and feelings you have about yourself. You can use EMDR in conjunction with traditional talk therapy to help you live a better, more fulfilled life without anxiety.
