Overcoming Trauma with EMDR Therapy

EMDR – a really bad name for a really amazing type of therapy.  Short for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, this is a form of therapy that actually “unhooks “unhealthy brain patterns, and creates new, more effective ones.

It’s hard to explain in a short paragraph, but even more difficult to NOT to do this therapy with almost all my clients. It activates the right brain – where trauma and emotions live – and essentially helps to move things through. It helps individuals process information that may otherwise take a long time (or be too painful) to process. Anything upsetting, anything that you can’t even bear to think about, can be processed with EMDR in a way that heals the brain and makes the memories, sounds, feelings, and thoughts less intrusive and impactful on a person’s current life.

It was originally developed for those struggling with PTSD, but is also effective in working through past core issues which may not be classified as your “typical” trauma. These would be those old beliefs, feelings, and/or thoughts, that continue to effect your life in a negative way. More specifically, EMDR can help keep old memories from hijacking your present experience. 

It can be a very emotional therapy and it does often tap into big feelings that need to be tapped into. The heightened emotions often crescendos in the session, then settle. It can leave clients feeling tired initially, emotionally drained, then often there is a sense of calm. Everything begins to feel slightly different; better. 

EMDR can move trauma through the nervous system in a way that talk therapy just can’t. Bonus: it has been largely researched as one of the best forms of therapy you can do with clients. So even though it has a crummy therapeutic name, it often has a great result.