What is EMDR, and How Can It Help Me?
EMDR therapy has been getting a lot of publicity lately, and that is a great thing! An acronym for Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, EMDR therapy has tremendous potential to help individuals heal from emotional trauma. I remember seeing EMDR in action for the first time when I was a trainee during graduate school. I was seeing a client who was coming to counseling to address trauma from her childhood, and I was struggling with how to help her. I talked to my supervisor, who was trained in EMDR, who suggested I ask the client if it would be ok for my supervisor to join our next session. The client agreed, and during the session my supervisor proceeded to use EMDR to target the client’s traumatic memory. When I met with the client a week later, she stated she was no longer having any nightmares or any kind of emotional distress when she thought about her trauma. I was skeptical. Actually, I didn’t believe her. She had been holding on to this trauma for almost 20 years, and the idea that she would no longer have any emotional distress after just one session of EMDR was, in my opinion, unbelievable. What was this EMDR stuff? I had to learn more.
The Splinter Analogy
The underlying premise of EMDR therapy is the belief that our bodies have the ability to heal from injuries, including emotional trauma. Most of the time, this healing process occurs without any issues or concerns. However there are some experiences that “stick” with us, and may affect other areas of our lives as well as our relationships. I like to use the analogy of a splinter; Splinters can be really annoying, and they can sometimes hurt a whole lot depending on how big the splinter is or what kind of splinter you have. Anyone who has gotten a splinter from glass knows it is quite different than a splinter from a piece of wood! Also, how big or deep your splinter is will determine how much it hurts, and that goes for not only getting the splinter in the first place, but also getting it out! Most of the time, we can remove the splinter without too much trouble, and our body will heal up pretty quickly without issues. But sometimes if we don’t get EVERY part of the splinter out, we will continue to feel the pain or discomfort that the splinter is causing. Until we remove all of it, our bodies can’t heal properly.
Sometimes we get “Emotional Splinters”
Similar to physical splinters, we can experience emotional splinters too. These come from events in our lives that have an emotional impact on us – even if the event itself may not be what others might consider “traumatic.” For example, if you get fired from your job, that could have significant emotional impact on you even if it isn’t traumatic in the traditional sense. Basically, if you are still feeling some kind of emotional distress that is linked to a past experience, you may have an “emotional splinter.”
The capacity to heal is within you
While we all have experiences that leave an emotional mark at times, when we can’t seem to move past the emotion we can feel stuck. The good news is that our bodies are programmed for healing, but first we need to remove the splinter. This is where EMDR can help. By using bi-lateral stimulation, EMDR helps you to access your body’s ability to locate and reprocess negative emotions that are linked to memories. Bi-lateral stimulation can be visual (eye-movement), physical, (tapping or pulses), or auditory (clicks or tones via headphones). These methods cross back and forth from one side of your body to the other side in an alternating manner. Think about the REM stage of sleep, when your eyes are rapidly moving back and forth while you are dreaming. That is bi-lateral movement! During EMDR your eyes will not be moving quite as rapidly, but you get the same effect. With the help of an EMDR Certified Therapist, you can use this bi-lateral stimulation to reprocess the negative emotions in a more adaptive way. In other words, it helps to remove the emotional splinter so your body can do what it does naturally – heal from the injury! In the case of my former client, she had already worked through a lot of her trauma in traditional counseling when she was younger, but she had an emotion splinter left. When my supervisor used EMDR in our session, the client was able to work through that last bit of emotion and she was able to feel better immediately.
How does EMDR work?
We know that EMDR helps to identify emotions attached to a traumatic memory and then use your body’s natural ability to heal so those emotions no longer hold the same “charge” as they once did. So how does EMDR do this? Well, because the brain is such a complex organ it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how certain therapeutic interventions “work,” and that goes for whether we’re talking about Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Solution-Focused Therapy, or EMDR. The amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex all play a role in how our brain perceives and processes traumatic events, and EMDR helps these parts of our brain communicate with each other to reprocesses the information related to the memory in a more adaptive way (emdria.org).
Who can benefit from EMDR?
As I mentioned previously, EMDR can be used to target any past experience that is continuing to cause emotional pain. Some of these events could be grief, anxiety, relationship stressors, low self-esteem, fears or phobias, bullying, divorce, depression, and anger, just to name a few. When you meet with your EMDR Certified Therapist, you will discuss if EMDR is a good fit for you, and develop a plan to help you reach your goals for therapy. EMDR can help you “move past your past” and focus on a positive and healthy future. If you think you could benefit from EMDR therapy, please contact me so we can talk more about what changes you’d like to make in your life. You can also search for EMDR Certified Therapists in your local area on the EMDRIA website. Next week, I will be talking more about what to expect in a general EMDR session. Make sure you stay connected for future posts!
