EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization
and Reprocessing Therapy

Why use EMDR?

Chopping vegetables for a traditional family recipe, you accidentally slice your fingertip. You wash your hands, dry them, and then stick a Band-Aid on the cut. You don’t have to think about it again because your body will do the rest.

When the physical body receives an injury, it begins healing. However, if a foreign object becomes stuck in the way or there is repetitive re-injury, the healing process becomes interrupted, and infection can occur.

Similarly, the mind’s ability to heal itself becomes hindered when blocked or imbalanced by negative and traumatic experiences, which can lead to responses such as anxiety, depression, flashbacks, compulsive behaviors, and other distressing symptoms.

EMDR can help remove the blockage so that healing can begin.

How does EMDR work?

The process of EMDR creates real, authentic change at a neurological level. That means we are dealing with actual brain change and not just changing our thoughts.

In the same way, your brain processes an experience from your day during a dream cycle while you sleep or in REM (rapid eye movement) you will move your eyes the same way during EMDR – except you’ll be awake.

Using a light bar, you will follow the movement of the light with your eyes without moving your head while thinking about a memory, negative self-belief, or unwelcome physical sensation such as panic.

Eye movements are a form of bilateral stimulation, a back-and-forth movement from left to right that simultaneously affects both sides of the body and brain. Sometimes, EMDR employs physical movements such as tapping rather than eye movements.

EMDR promotes a faster healing process than talk therapy alone.

Rather than using outside resources to manage pain or distress, EMDR activates a person’s natural healing ability. That’s right! The power to heal is already in you!

When we use EMDR, we bring up a memory, a negative self-belief such as “I’m not enough,” or a stuck emotion or physical sensation.

At the same time, we use rapid eye movements or tapping to move that memory actively and intentionally from the present to the past to break the chains that bound us and move on toward a happier future.

EMDR has multiple mental health benefits.

After the discovery in the 1980s, therapists initially used it to help people suffering from PTSD or trauma.

Over the past few decades, however, research has shown that EMDR is highly effective for people suffering from anxiety, phobias, OCD, depression, addiction, attachment disorders, eating disorders, and more.

Active participation in EMDR has even helped many clients increase their sleep quality.

Here’s what therapy with me will be like.

We will begin EMDR therapy by taking time to help you learn skills that will reduce and tolerate negative sensations first. I will also work with you to create an EMDR roadmap of memories and feelings that we will work through individually.

You will oversee your sessions, and I will be the traffic light, telling you when to stop and go while frequently checking in with you throughout the process as you reduce negative emotions and sensations.

After processing each memory, you can create a new perspective that feels good, more vital, and healed.

EMDR can help even without an active negative memory.

Our brain stores an experience as explicit (facts, knowledge, events) and implicit (emotional connection with or without images) memories. You can have only explicit memories, implicit memories, or both.

With EMDR, we can go through our emotions and physical sensations because those are implicit memories.

Research has shown that EMDR works even on implicit memories stored in the right side of the brain from as early as the first months of life.

Do I have to talk about my trauma?

You may fear starting therapy because if you talk about it or think about it, it feels like it gets worse.

With EMDR, you will face your memories, but you only must give me headlines. There is no need to go into detail about what happened.

Administering EMDR requires training.

EMDR is a highly effective and specialized form of therapy that should only be provided by appropriately trained professionals – like me.

A person should not use EMDR on themselves, even if properly trained.

For more information, watch this video: https://youtu.be/Pkfln-ZtWeY, or visit the official EMDRIA webpage here.

Ready to take that leap of faith toward your future or want to learn more about EMDR and what it looks like? Contact me now to set up your free consultation