EMDR trauma work is healing.
Even the most casual scroll through breaking news headlines these days can provoke real fear. We’re enduring traumatic and life-altering events across the globe. Such turmoil and transition can challenge our mental health. If you were already dealing with past trauma, this situation may exacerbate your struggles.
To safely and effectively cope with uncertainty, face your fears, and thrive fearlessly, a proven technique like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can make all the difference.
How Does the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Work?
EMDR utilizes a person’s rapid, rhythmic eye movements to reduce the power traumatic memories hold over their lives. Such memories tend to be stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Thanks to EMDR trauma work, your therapist can help you access both hemispheres of the brain to facilitate healing.
Consider the way we heal from a physical injury like a cut. Your body works to close and heal the wound. This is best done if that spot is not irritated or re-injured. In the case of emotional trauma, your body wants to heal but needs balance to do so. EMDR trauma work removes obstacles to this process. Once the path toward healing is cleared, the client can activate their natural healing processes.
Using EMDR Trauma Work to Transform Fear to Fearlessness
As detailed above, we may all feel more at risk of trauma than ever before. In addition, previous trauma wounds can re-open in the current climate of fear, uncertainty, and division. Whether we realize it or not, we often carry around this trauma in many forms, e.g.
Flashbacks
Nightmares
Social isolation and withdrawal
Depression
Anxiety
It’s as if we are stuck in emotional quicksand. This stuck sense results from the beliefs, sensations, thought patterns we’ve internalized about events that traumatized us. EMDR trauma work aims at challenging and altering those beliefs more bodywork than verbalization. This can be done, for example, by working with your therapist to picture something disturbs you as the eye movements are performed. The research on EMDR has been incredibly encouraging. One major study found that after just six 50-minute EMDR sessions:
77 percent of multiple-trauma victims no longer carried the PTSD diagnosis
the success rate was 100 percent for single-trauma victims
In a study of combat veterans, three out of four participants were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. The process is proactive, empowering, and driven by you. You are reprocessing distressing thoughts and memories, not retraumatizing yourself, continually rehashing your fears, or prolonging disturbing bodily sensations.
Moreover, as you feel less impacted by trauma, the ability to stand up for yourself and face the uncertainty of the world will increase. Pandemics, protests, the negativity of the press cycle, and even your own past will have less capacity to suppress your voice and emotional expression.
Truthfully, EMDR won’t change the turmoil of the outside world. But it can soothe your fears and help quell any doubts by helping you feel grounded, connecting you with more positive emotions, and building confidence that your responses are healthy.
Learn More About EMDR Trauma Work and How it Matters More Than Ever
EMDR presents with far fewer side effects than the medications usually prescribed for PTSD. Patients may feel a heightened awareness that can lead to light-headedness and vivid, realistic dreams. It helps to talk with your counselor in advance to better prepare for the process.Beyond its stellar record as a trauma treatment, EMDR therapy effectively treats other conditions that are on the rise in 2020. These include
depression
anxiety
panic disorders
EMDR may be so unlike what you expect from psychotherapy that it is essential to consult in advance with an experienced mental health professional to learn more.As you know, we’re living in an extraordinary time. Such times call for extraordinary measures and open minds. EMDR trauma work is indeed an extraordinary and powerful step toward recovery and healing. It may be precisely what you need to transform your fear into fearlessness.Want to know more about the role of psychotherapy in trauma body recovery?
Please contact us for a free consultation to determine how we can be of service. Your mind and body will thank you. If you would like support and are looking for a psychotherapist, please contact us for a free consultation to learn about how we can be of service.
To find out more about our services in Boulder, CO click here: EMDR Therapy. Serving Boulder, Longmont, Denver...
