EMDR therapy for trauma is a tool often used to remedy pain from your past. A gold standard among methods used to treat traumatic experiences, EMDR therapy can be effective as soon as after just one session. When talk therapy, especially after years of trying, is proving to be unsuccessful, then that is when EMDR therapy comes into play as a more precise and often more effective treatment method.
Pragmatically speaking, this means that EMDR therapy, borrowing from many cognitive-behavioral therapy elements, effectively allows patients to be treated through dual stimulation. Unlike talk therapy, not only do you discuss your memories and all the trauma and emotions associated with them, but you also follow your therapist’s finger to ensure a consistent bilateral eye movement from left to right.
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What Is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR Therapy is when you access memories that couldn’t be fully healed from your past and heal them through your brain’s natural healing function. EMDR therapy for trauma stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, and it was developed by psychologist Dr. Francine Shapiro as she was walking through a park one day, dealing with her stress reactions. It was because her stress reactions reduced when she moved her eyes back and forth that she came up with what is today called EMDR therapy. The intensity of disturbing thoughts you have, either through stress, repressed memories, or traumatic events, can be reduced through eye movements.
EMDR therapy combines reframing the meaning or light that we see events in with physical eye movements. It allows you to reprogram a memory or traumatic event from your past in a new light to become a positive belief. EMDR therapy has been effective for many people, even as it still evolves, and one reason is its implementation of rapid eye movements to support shifts in recollection and derived meaning.
How EMDR Therapy Works
EMDR therapy for trauma encompasses eight separate phases. The 8 phases of EMDR are:
- History and Treatment Planning: This involves discussing your past events and history with your therapist during your first session. You will be asked what brought you into therapy, and you will answer follow-up questions as well as the therapist’s attempts to define your behaviors, fears, patterns, and emotions. Unlike with other talk therapies, talking about a traumatic event in detail is not required. Still, you will have to talk about how an event made you feel physically and emotionally. Once a custom treatment plan is formalized and finalized, EMDR can officially start.
- Preparation: Since EMDR therapy can bring many strong emotions to the surface, therapists will start by arming you with techniques that you can use to manage these emotions and administer self-care when needed. Crucial to the trust-building aspect of therapy, the preparation stage allows a therapist to outline the journey you are about to embark on together.
- Assessment: During the assessment phase of EMDR therapy for trauma, you will identify three important markers. The first is identifying the specific picture or memory that caused the trauma and seeing it clearly (along with the emotional and physical sensations you felt). The second is stating the negative belief you associated with yourself because of the event. The third is the positive belief you would like to replace the negative belief with. For example, going from “I am in danger” as a negative belief to “I am safe now” as a positive belief. What’s known as a Validity of Cognition Scale (VOC) will also assist you in rating your negative and positive beliefs on a potency scale of 1-7.
- Desensitization: To begin the trauma processing stages (stages 4-6), you need to become aware of all your bodily and emotional sensations (whether good, bad, or neutral) so that as you pay attention to the negative belief derived from the traumatic event as well as the negative emotions and sensations, you start to develop new insights. Following your therapist’s finger, ensuring your eye movements are consistently in motion bilaterally, as you’re asked questions about your experience, you discover new associations and emotions together. As you digest events, feelings, and sensations, your therapist will be right there with you, ensuring your distress level is okay until you are at a 0 or a one on the SUD scale.
- Installation: During the installation phase, your sole focus is on the positive belief you want to install and replace the negative belief with. You increase the potency by focusing on this new positive belief between your therapist’s finger and directing your eyes’ movement. This process is repeated, with your therapist asking you to state at which level of potency (from a scale of 1-7) your new belief is until you declare that it is firmly and consistently at a level 7 of implementation. Once the therapist confirms that the new belief has been accepted as fully true, you have completed your installation phase.
- Body Scan: Although replacing a negative belief with a positive belief is a good start, it’s not the end of the process. The therapist will then direct you to scan your body for any lingering sensations, tensions, or physical residue from the target memory or traumatic event until you can be confident that any lingerie physical sensations have also been alleviated. More important than just changing your emotions and beliefs on an intellectual level is being able to talk about the traumatic event without any bodily tension or physical sensations at all.
- Closure: Your therapist will work to ensure that after every session of EMDR therapy for trauma, you are leaving feeling better than you did when you entered. So, they will arm you with relaxation and visualization techniques that you can use between sessions to ensure you are balanced as traumatic memories, feelings, or sensations may arise during the week before your next session.
- Reevaluation: At the beginning of each therapy session, your therapist will evaluate if you’ve retained the positive associations you’ve worked on for each target. They will progress to the next target if the results have maintained sustainability. Still, if at each session, the work done is not showing up consistently as retained, then you will reprocess the target together until the repetition from session to session has ensured an ingrained change and the ability to move on to the processing of the next target. It will be common for you to be asked to focus on the targets you’ve already processed at the beginning of each session as your therapist reviews your responses for positive and progressing results.
The Benefits of EMDR Therapy for Trauma
EMDR therapy for trauma, compared to other trauma therapies, is a therapy that is distinctive for the speed with which it allows past problems to be resolved. Compared to other therapies, EMDR therapy has been shown to produce positive results from as early as the very first session. Unlike talk therapy, EMDR also does not require you to discuss a deeply traumatic event in detail. Working through your mind, body, and emotions, EMDR therapy allows you to tackle past traumas with relative distance, and the speedy implementation of techniques allows one to progress through therapy toward a positive result quite quickly. If you ever need to relive a trauma during EMDR therapy, it is short-lived, and EMDR is especially effective for children with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Who Can Benefit from EMDR Therapy?
Children with PTSD have been known to benefit from EMDR therapy for trauma, but so have adults (specifically, adults who want to consistently progress with treatment as they go about their busy work lives uninterrupted). EMDR therapy can be used for any age group since its techniques can be adjusted to meet the patient’s needs cognitive) and can even start as young as 2 years old.
What to Expect During EMDR Therapy Sessions
To prepare for your first EMDR therapy for trauma, make sure to have a set of questions ready for your therapist and to relax. There is nothing to be nervous about, and some of the questions you can have prepared are: What are some of the latest developments in EMDR therapy, and have you kept up with these protocols? What is your background and training in EMDR therapy? A typical EMDR session will begin with a therapist asking you questions and defining your experiences, emotions, physical sensations, and negative thoughts or beliefs. Then, they will walk you through the implementation of positive beliefs, bilateral eye movement exercises, and assessment of physical and emotional sensations as you progress through the therapy.
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How to Find an EMDR Therapist
Although specialized, EMDR therapists are easy to find. They can be licensed mental health professionals with an EMDR certification or therapists who utilize EMDR as one of many complex approaches available to treating deep-seated traumas, memories, events, and experiences.
The Role of Moment of Clarity in EMDR Therapy
Moment of Clarity offers EMDR therapy as a part of an all-inclusive trauma treatment and recovery procedure. We also provide life skills advice, trauma-informed care, and individual and group counseling. The success of our programs is guaranteed because we focus on patient recovery by addressing their specific requirements. We are ready to help you or a loved one get past a traumatic event you are struggling with through our effective, top-notch outpatient mental health treatment in California.
Contact 949-625-0564 to discover more about our EMDR treatment and the other forms of therapy we offer.
