What is EMDR? And is it for me?
Have you had any adverse experiences that you are trying to process or make sense of some memories that you don’t have a full recollection of? The eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) believes your past emotionally charged experiences influence your present emotions, sensations, and thoughts about yourself. The acronym EMDR has gotten quite popular in the mental health field in recent years. I hope this blog enhances your understanding about it and helps you decide if this modality is right for you.
EMDR therapy is a mental health treatment which involves bilateral stimulation, such as moving your eyes in a specific manner while processing traumatic memories that you remember or have suppressed, along with a set of procedures to organize your negative and positive feelings, emotions and thoughts. In comparison to other therapeutic techniques, EMDR is fairly new and has been proven to be effective. EMDR’s goal is to help you heal from trauma or distressing life experiences.
EMDR Treatment
EMDR can help people with a myriad of mental health conditions and various age ranges, from adolescents to adults. It relies on the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model, a theory about how our brain stores memories, i.e. normal and traumatic memories, and interprets information which was developed by Francise Shapiro, PhD.
A lot of psychological difficulties are the result of distressing life experiences that have not been stored in memory properly and have been left unprocessed/blocked.
For normal memories, our brain integrates these new memories with pre-existing normal experiences and memories we remember. Whereas during disturbing/traumatic events, that integration doesn’t happen correctly which leads our brain to go “offline,” resulting in a disconnect between what we experience (feel, heal and touch) and what our brain stores in memory through language. Therefore, traumatic memories are like a wound that our brain hasn’t allowed to heal, because it didn’t have a chance to heal, and our brain didn’t receive the message that the danger is over.
During EMDR, and undergoing bilateral movements, one can access memories of a trauma or adverse experiences in very specific ways. Hence, it helps process one’s negative experiences and remember experiences as what happened to you rather than reliving it. EMDR replicates our sleep pattern by alternating between a set of eye movements and brief reports about what you are noticing. This alternating process helps you take these past emotionally charged memories and update them to a healthier present perspective.
EMDR is proved to be an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and may be effective for other conditions, particularly if they involve trauma or any adverse memories. or other adverse me
If you would like to process any of your adverse experiences and/or trauma experiences through EMDR or make sense of your current behavioral patterns then please feel free to reach out to our office or email at yangla@chicagohealingconnection.com
Resources:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22641-emdr-therap
