EMDR Therapy
We love using EMDR in our private practice. It is so useful in so many diverse cases. Our goal while using EMDR is to help your brain reprocess painful and harmful memories with both sides of your brain. You would be surprised how often memories get stuck without your full brain input.
Especially when it comes to trauma, certain parts of your brain are shut off—the Broca area, where you verbalize your experience, is turned off; the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which tells time, isn't working; the thalamus, which translates bodily sensations into meaning, is overwhelmed; and the hippocampus is unable to record the trauma into long-term memory.
All this to say, your brain won't be able to function in a way that understands and gives meaning to your experience. No wonder these half-formed memories linger and disturb us.
In EMDR, we can allow the brain to go back and understand what happened. Once we understand, the symptoms—i.e., attempts by the brain to process what happened—become less powerful.
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What to Expect In EMDR Therapy
EMDR is a very different experience than classic psychodynamic therapy. It is structured, protocolled, and has much less therapist involvement than what you might be used to. You are guided by the therapist, but it is your brain working hard to heal itself. You might feel a sense of lack of control or strangeness/silliness at having to watch/feel something EMDR therapists call "bilateral stimulation."
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What Does the Research Say?
APA highly recommends EMDR for treating PTSD. However, EMDR has shown to help people with anxiety, depression, grief, and childhood trauma. It is one of the more well researched therapy approaches due to it working so well on trauma. Research has indicated that it is less effective with personality disorders.
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Whom Can EMDR Help?
EMDR can be a good fit for children, young adults, and adults who have gone through trauma, experience anxiety, relational conflict, and sleeplessness. EMDR isn't going to be an easy fit for you if you are highly dissociative or if you experience psychosis.
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How We See EMDR In Our Practice
We enjoy seeing the power of EMDR to gain fast results. It is one more tool we use in therapy and find it can be a playful and revealing experience for our clients.