EMDR
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. According to the WHO, EMDR is recommended and included in the list of methods used to treat e.g. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). EMDR has also shown positive results in terms of alleviating and managing anxiety, grief, reactions to various physical illnesses and more.
With years of experience using EMDR therapy, I’ve witnessed firsthand its profound impact on individuals dealing with trauma. Even the most challenging memories can be neutralised through EMDR, allowing for a more manageable and fulfilling life. EMDR can help you significantly reduce the burden of painful past experiences that may still be affecting your daily life.
That’s why EMDR as a form of therapy helps you to make the past stay in the past, so you can better relate to the “the present moment”.
How to define a significant incident or trauma
A trauma can be:
- Assault
- Abuse
- Bullying
- Witnessing the illness and suffering of a dying or deceased person
- Witnessing or discovering suicide or suicide attempts
- Accidents
- Natural disasters
Even if the trauma happened days or weeks ago, or even years ago, you may still find yourself haunted and tormented by the experience in your daily life in the form of post-traumatic symptoms, also known as PTSD – read more about PTSD under the topic Anxiety.
For example, you may experience the following:
- Invasive memories
- Overwhelming emotions
- Thoughts revolving around the incident
- Repeated nightmares
- Anxiety
- Isolation and loneliness
- Low self-esteem
- Various bodily sensations, palpitations/heartbeat and restlessness etc.
When you are exposed to a critical event that can lead to trauma, this trauma can become “frozen” in an unprocessed form in the brain. The event is stored in the same raw form as when it happened. So images, sounds, smells, thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations will be stored as if the incident had just happened, even if it is a very old trauma.
How is the EMDR method used in therapy?
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation. Together, we choose the stimulation that you feel most comfortable with and that suits you best:
- Eye movements via a light bar
- Small hand grips that you hold. They buzz slightly and switch between right and left
- Tapping on hands or knees
- Sound stimulation
This stimulates the frozen material in your brain and nerve cells in your body. This means that your brain starts processing the event from the dysfunctional storage to the more functional storage.
Our brain typically generates thought processes and manages stress to help regulate emotions and self-perception. However, during a traumatic or intense event, this process can shut down, causing the traumatic experience to become stored in our consciousness. This disruption makes it difficult to process the experience properly – a phenomenon known as information processing. This shows up e.g. when:
- Experiencing feelings and sensations that are reactivated even though you know the event happened a long time ago.
- Developing unhelpful thoughts and self-images from the trauma as a lasting stream of thoughts such as “it was my own fault” or “I’m no good”.
These thoughts and feelings can have a big impact on how you perceive yourself in the future and how you interact with other people.
EMDR treatment
During your session with me, we’ll explore the details of the incident or trauma you’ve experienced.
Together we will:
- Create a timeline
- Set up a protocol
- Specify the incident
- Map out your thoughts
- Explore the emotions
- Pay attention to the physical and other sensations linked to the incident(s).
- Scale the different incident scenarios so we can decide which event to start with.
- Start with theoldest, worst ormost present.
- Establish a safe placeso that you always have the option to step away if the experience becomes too overwhelming.
- Be aware of what you can do between therapy sessions, as you may often experience reactions such as
- Fatigue
- Dizziness
- Sadness
- Increased dream activity
- New memories of what happened can emerge.
- Focus on your breathing and practise good breathing techniques throughout the therapy
- Choose the relaxation exercises that suit you best so that you are able to “return to your body again”
- Practise more positive and constructive ways to think about yourself while processing the trauma
- Make sure you process the incident/trauma so that it doesn’t affect your daily life. This means that you’ll be able to return to the original image of the incident without feeling discomfort in your body or being stuck in negative thought patterns.
Following the session, an aftercare process will help ensure that you feel lighter and more relaxed than when you began the therapy.
