Everyone, at one point or another, will endure a traumatic experience or a disturbing event. Some of us will move forward. And some of us experience longer-lasting effects. Whether we endure trauma as children or later in life, we needn't just learn to live with the pain and anxiety.
Thankfully, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can make all the difference. Proven to provide relief for both the body and mind, this treatment modality is designed to help people of all ages reprocess memories connected to their most disturbing life experiences. As a result, life becomes less hurtful and more transformational. A gift any child, teen, adult, or elderly person would cherish.
How Does EMDR Help?
Generally, EMDR begins with finding a certified experienced therapist. They will serve as your guide — encouraging you to focus on a memory or emotion that troubles you. You will be guided by the therapist to move your eyes back and forth in a rapid manner. This mimics the natural rapid eye movement (REM) that occurs as you dream.
Performing these movements while focused on a distressing topic has been found to accelerate the emotional healing process. This is not automatic or something that can happen in a single session. However, following EMDR's required 8-phase protocol can help your brain process memories more efficiently in a relatively short of time
How Can All Ages Benefit from EMDR Anxiety Therapy?
In the treatment of trauma, study after study has documented the effectiveness of EMDR. The World Health Organization itself recommends EMDR for PTSD in adults, adolescents, and children. Moreover, the approach is helpful with much more than "big T" traumas like natural disasters, war, abuse, etc. The "little T" traumas, such as teasing during school or feeling ghosted by a romantic interest, can be resolved as well. Whatever disturbing event plagues you, from whatever stage in your life, EMDR can effectively address stuck and unproductive memories.
The approach is effective among all age groups for several key reasons.
EMDR anxiety therapy works with few words
The beauty of EMDR is that it is not reliant on a rehashing and experiencing trauma verbally.Stuck memories usually result in tension in the body and misperception about the past in the mind. To reprocess the past and release you from its triggering, negative influence needn't require talk therapy. EMDR focuses on healing via visual images, negative internal beliefs, and bodily sensations related to the trauma.
Thus, a child with a limited vocabulary, an anxious adult, or a depressed senior can find relief with little time spent repeatedly talking about the emotional upheaval of the past. Instead, participants wok with their therapist on the basis of their compiled client history, focusing instead on how disturbing past experiences may be negative, dysfunctional, or maladaptively stored in the body and mind.
EMDR anxiety therapy explores past, present and future for the sake of mind/body health and recovery
This therapy is not all about treating the symptoms. The whole person and the whole of their experience is appreciated and compassionately addressed. Your therapist wants to help you achieve peak performance cognitively and emotionally. Reprocessing the memories places a person back in control of their own life. Focus on bodily awareness, release, and control restores the natural balance internally.
As the memories are recorded, they are less fearful. The past shifts into something observable and informative. You can then see the present clearly and the future opens up. Meeting your own health and relationship needs becomes much less difficult. This empowers a child who may have felt helpless or an elderly person who may feel that too much time has passed to make meaningful changes.
EMDR transforms trauma into teachable experiences
To put it simply, whatever your age, adverse life experiences affect you. Your physical, emotional, mental, and behavioral responses may not serve you well. EMDR is the pathway to reprocessing memories that productively informs those responses. Thereby, you are free to see the past with less emotion. A growth perspective can take root. Healing can happen.
Most of all, new knowledge comes with reinterpretation of your trauma. From there, trauma can inspire new purpose as life lessons are learned. EMDR pioneer Francine Shapiro, Ph.D, once noted that "Ultimately, the goal is to liberate you from the confines of the past into a happy and productive present and a fulfilling future."
The Bottom Line?
You deserve to have happiness and fulfilling relationships. So does every child, adult, and person living their golden years. Problems involving negative thoughts and emotions are generally the result of negative past experiences improperly stored in our brains. Seek out an EMDR therapist for assistance and a path to freedom. Your negative emotions, physical sensations, and beliefs can be relieved and a positive sense of self can emerge.
If you're looking for a therapist and want to see if we're a good fit, please contact us for a free consultation today. Offering online counseling and phone calls in Boulder, CO.
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