Explaining EMDR Therapy. Profound & Rapid Relief
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is one of the types of therapies available at BiTS.
Several of our counsellors are trained to advanced levels through trainings certified by the EMDR International Association. We’ve been careful to get adequately trained because of the complexity of the protocols & the profound neurological depth this therapy can affect. It is wise to find a therapist with certificates for level 2, as well as other advanced protocols (e.g. dissociation or addictions).
EMDR results in profound and rapid relief for symptoms, particularly for stuck pain, stress, trauma and somatic symptoms. It addresses past experiences that are influencing your present-day emotions, pain, sensations & internal messages about yourself.
For example, Do you ever feel worthless although you know that you are a good enough person? No matter what you do to “dispute” those negative feelings about yourself, it doesn’t stick? Or, do you notice that you have a simmering anxiety that just won’t budge, even with reassurances from yourself or others?
Or maybe you have pain and sensations that seem to remember past traumatic experiences. Many disturbing life experiences are not fully stored as a narrative. They are stored in implicit memory, in which the body holds emotions and sensations stuck without adapting to the present-day context.
EMDR helps shift that stuckness to catch up with what you know in your rational present-day brain.
Cool things about EMDR:
You do not have to talk in detail about a trauma for it to be digested & resolved by your brain’s information processing system (Shapiro & Forrest, p xiv). In fact, taking out the requirement to analyze & talk about it, helps you stay connected to your limbic brain so that it can be helped more directly. That is the area of the brain that doesn’t respond much to talking therapies.
Your therapist leads you through rapid sets of eye movements to help your brain digest information in a deep way. You remain alert and in control. Depending on what works best for you, the eye movements might be replaced with tapping on your hands, butterfly self-hug tapping, a pulsing device held in your hands, or even alternating sounds. These are all methods to stimulate your nervous system’s natural processing paths.
There usually isn’t any homework: Your brain does it for you! In session, your brain’s neuroplasticity is activated & keeps working on changing neural pathways even for days after you leave the session… Your therapist may ask you to practice ways to soothe your nervous system (such as breathing or positive visualizations) at home, or to jot down anything that becomes activated in your mind until your next session. But you don’t have to work on that memory, rate your symptoms between sessions, journal deeply or try hard to change thoughts/feelings.
What is a session like?
There can be different ways EMDR is used in session:
to increase your ability to contain your emotions or memories
to enhance positive meditations or internal messages about self
to relieve stuckness of memories or symptoms
When the session’s purpose is to bring relief from stuckness or pain, we call that processing. During processing, the therapist will ask you to concentrate on a disturbing part of a memory, or symptom. Together you will briefly discuss the impact that you currently feel of that part. Then your therapist will ask you to track their fingers with your eyes. During sets of eye movements they will encourage you to let your mind move through whatever comes up, without analyzing or trying to change.
The process may sound unsettling, but in EMDR sessions, you are alert & in control the whole time. You may experience intense emotions, but it should not overwhelm you. Our therapists are attuned to notice if it is getting too intense & adjust the therapy in ways to help you manage the intensity. By the end of the session, the aim is to get to some reduction of the originally experienced distress.
There are 100s of research studies over the past 30 years proving the effectiveness of EMDR for treatment of stress, trauma, anxiety, chronic pain and somatic stuckness, and for all age groups. (1)
While results are individually unique, it is clear from EMDR research that you can experience some change to your distress within as few as 3-6 sessions. This means, you can test EMDR out in a relatively short time to see if it is effective for you.
I’m very enthusiastic about EMDR:
I’ve seen significant changes for many of my clients when adding EMDR to our therapy session. I love that it has a direct effect on the way that the brain & the rest of the nervous system functions.
EMDR activates neuroplasticity and starts you down the healthier path in thoughts, emotions, & symptoms. In this way it “works” on shifting your nervous system, even when you are not in session. People who have experienced EMDR report that the images, sounds, and feelings associated with the trauma become less active in their mind. The experience is still remembered, but is less upsetting.
Want to see if EMDR is the right therapy for you? You can email me to ask about EMDR or call us at 250-564-3034 to request a session.
Hoping you find the balance you need…
Warmly,
Tanya Bedford, RCC, ACS
Tanya Bedford
Registered Clinical Counsellor
Approved Clinical Supervisor
MA Counselling Psychology
Living with chronic pain, hurts and trauma? My focus is to offer hope, through meaningful & transformative counselling… for you that are struggling with chronic pain trauma, dissociation, anxiety & attachment hurts. My approach is integrative of your whole self, offering EMDR, OEI, CBT, ACT, Satir systems, Safe & Sound Protocol listening, somatic therapies, and including spirituality & existentialism. You may most benefit from profoundly transformative VIP Intensives where we meet for a longer session to power through a significant block, or integrative co-therapy sessions with Myron’s osteopathy treatment. In other words, I have flexible integrative strategies to offer for your complex needs.