Healing with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
“The speed at which change occurs during EMDR contradicts the traditional notion of time as essential for psychological healing. EMDR has integrated elements from many different schools of psychotherapy into its protocols, making EMDR applicable to a variety of clinical populations.” – Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD, Boston University School of Medicine
EMDR is a unique form of therapy that utilizes the client’s natural psychological and physiological ability to heal. It is an accelerated form of therapy that taps in to your body’s natural information processing ability that often becomes blocked by our desire to avoid negative emotions. EMDR, developed in 1987 by Dr. Francine Shapiro, is an effective way of “reprocessing” these traumatic memories, helping them to naturally move from fast-access trauma memory into slower-access long term memory storage in the brain. The client is guided through an 8-phase structured process that facilitates this reprocessing to happen. When the process is complete, the memory goes from a powerful, emotional, vivid memory to a vague, fuzzy memory that is no longer upsetting. Many clients are amazed at how the old memory “disappears” and how much easier it is to respond differently in previously reactive situations.
EMDR’s speed and efficacy has been demonstrated in numerous research studies. The EMDR Institute (www.emdr.com) states that: “After EMDR processing, clients generally report that the emotional distress related to the memory has been eliminated, or greatly decreased, and that they have gained important cognitive insights. Importantly, these emotional and cognitive changes usually result in spontaneous behavioral and personal change, which are further enhanced with standard EMDR procedures.”
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After years of using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), I continue to be amazed at the natural healing that can happen in such a short time that often isn’t possible using only talk therapy. EMDR is a highly effective and well-researched therapeutic method for healing many types of psychological distresses. I have found it helpful in a variety of cases to address:
- Anxiety, fear, phobias
- Panic attacks
- Depression
- Post traumatic stress disorder
- Compulsive eating
- Chronic low self-esteem and inappropriate feelings of guilt, shame, worthlessness, or badness
- Symptoms of trauma (anxiety, hyper vigilance, intrusive memories) that are part of post traumatic stress disorder
- Negative patterns (emotions, thoughts, relationship choices) related to childhood trauma and abuse (sexual, physical, and/or emotional)
- Obsessive thoughts or compulsive behaviors
Often these symptoms are related to our unique, individual history. Past negative experiences that cause us to become very upset or overwhelmed can have a lasting effect on our emotional life. This is because when individuals experience a mild to severe trauma, the memories related to the traumatic experience are stored differently than normal memories and become “frozen in time.” These memories are stored so that they are vivid, powerful, and easily accessible memories. This is a function of our body’s adaptive mechanism to help us avoid future threats to our physical and emotional safety. For example, if a caveman saw a dinosaur on a rampage, he would have a much greater chance of survivial if he was able to immediately access that memory and recognize the threat when he sees another one 20 years later. However, many of these experiences (e.g. when my Dad said I’d never amount to anything) are not helpful to hold on to if they negatively affect how we see ourselves and the world today (e.g., I continue to believe and act as if I’m a loser).
In addition to the benefits described above, EMDR therapy is often:
- Faster than traditional talk therapy
- Provides substantial change and permanent relief from chronic issues
- Able to get at the “heart” of issues, providing healing rather than just symptom relief
One client’s perspective:
EMDR helped me make amazing changes in my life. Most importantly, EMDR helped me change how I feel about myself. I was feeling depressed and felt I didn’t deserve anything good in my life. I felt I was a bad kid and that I’d done bad things as a kid and as a teen. Those memories and mistakes continued to haunt me years later and they affected my work and family life. I would continually play back all of the bad memories.
I would regularly feel like I wasn’t doing a good job or that I wasn’t good enough and didn’t deserve anything. It seems hard to believe that a few sessions of EMDR could really make such a big difference, but they did! EMDR changed how I viewed my memories – I could see I was a normal kid, even a good kid. I could see that the mistakes I made were pretty normal too. By the end of each session, the memory shifted, and I didn’t have the same bad feelings about myself. No one was more surprised than me.
I noticed in the following weeks my mind didn’t go back to continually playing all of the bad memory tapes. In fact, the tape in my head seemed erased. My interaction with others was less reactive and the continual anger I had was diminished. What a relief! I was finally able to begin to believe that I am a good person and that I deserve good things in my life! – Grateful EMDR client
Another client’s perspective:
I did regular talk therapy for years. It helped in the moment, but I didn’t ever seem to achieve any real change on my core issues. When I finally did EMDR – wow – I made amazing progress in just a sessions! EMDR helped me let go of fears and anxieties that had been with me for years! My mom was pretty critical and controlling and she would get angry if everything wasn’t just so. I didn’t realize it, but because of those childhood experiences, I learned to stress out about having to do everything right. After EMDR, I can relax, and I know I don’t have to be perfect all of the time. What a relief! – EMDR client
If you have feeling and thought patterns that have been hard to change, despite having tried many different approaches, EMDR may be for you. For example, if you notice that you have occasional or frequent “over the top” emotional responses to a given situation, even when a part of you knows that you are overreacting, EMDR can usually help. It can help with obvious trauma symptoms (e.g. intrusive thoughts or images) as well as more subtle “stuck” patterns in our lives.
EMDR engages natural healing by removing blocks to your body and mind’s natural trauma processing. It is not hypnosis, and it is not the clinician “doing something” or “healing” you. Rather it is the clinician helping you engage your natural ability to heal yourself. I compare EMDR to healing a trauma memory the way a doctor helps heal a limb by putting it in a cast. The professional provides the right conditions and support, and the body does it’s own healing. Current science tells us that when a person experiences trauma or is highly upset, their brain’s chemistry is altered. Traumatic memories are stored differently in the brain and are not processed naturally during the brain’s nightly memory consolidation process (as normal memories are). These “frozen trauma memories” cause automatic reactions to cues that often are not helpful. I work with my clients to identify the memories that cause these present-day reactions, and then we use EMDR to gently engage these memories and facilitate the body’s natural ability to process and neutralize the memory. EMDR allows the mind and body to release the trauma along with the old emotions, thoughts, and sensations. This also allows empowering insights, perspectives, and healing to occur.
