Is EMDR right for me?
If you’re seeking therapy for yourself or a loved one, you may have come across EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a type of therapy that’s gaining a lot of traction right now as one of the foremost treatments for trauma.
What if I don’t have trauma?
Actually, chances are you do. Most of us do. The way EMDR and many other therapies now conceptualize trauma is with a much broader scope than traditionally thought. It isn’t just limited veterans who have seen combat or people who were abused as children - though those experiences certainly qualify as trauma and often result in a PTSD diagnosis.
Rather, any experience that upsets our nervous system has the potential to become embedded in the body as a trauma, particularly if we didn’t get the support we needed during the event or after the event was over. In fact, the research is showing that many of the most common issues people come to therapy for - including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, substance use, and relationships - have their roots in traumatic experiences such as these.
So what does EMDR do?
EMDR gets in touch with the mind and body’s natural propensity to heal from trauma through a form of Bilateral Dual Attention Stimulation, or BLS. For most people the type of BLS used is tracing a therapist’s moving fingers with their eyes (the EM in EMDR), but others with eye conditions or head injuries can still benefit from alternatives such as rhymically tapping different parts of the body. Whatever BLS you choose, it allows the nervous system to revisit experiences that got encoded as trauma and process whatever got stuck there - usually thoughts, emotions, or sensations we felt at the time that are pervading in the present (“triggers”).
That all sounds pretty intense.
It can certainly be! Although safe, this work often brings people to tears and many report feeling exhausted afterwards. However, if you feel like the same issues keep coming up in your life over and over again, it may be time to find a therapist who is specifically EMDR-trained.
In my work, I like to take at least a session or two to get a better sense of what you’re hoping to get out of therapy and build safety tools before we begin this vulnerable work. And like I always tell people after an EMDR session - drink water, get rest, and go easy on yourself! The changes will come but you may not always feel them or notice them that same day.
Reach out today for a free consultation.
Learn more about our EMDR therapy services in Colorado. Serving Boulder, Longmont, Denver.
