Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR in my practice
I use EMDR everyday in my practice as a clinical psychologist and it has become an invaluable tool when treating clients who have experienced trauma. While it can be a challenging process for clients to engage in, EMDR produces meaningful change. Clients who complete the process reflect on the experience as worthwhile and representing a significant positive shift in their disturbing trauma symptoms.
What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of therapy that helps people heal from trauma or other distressing life experiences by encouraging them to focus on a trauma memory while also engaging in bilateral eye movements. This process is associated with a reduction in the intensity of emotional disturbance of trauma memories. EMDR therapy has been extensively researched and has demonstrated very good effectiveness for treating trauma.
How does it work?
Our brains have a natural way to recover from traumatic or distressing experiences. Often these experiences can be managed and resolved through the brains natural healing process, however some traumatic experiences cannot be resolved through the brains normal process.
When distress from a disturbing event remains, it can result in upsetting symptoms that may include images, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, being transported back in time, or feeling frozen in time. EMDR therapy helps the brain process these memories, and allows normal healing to resume. The memories are not erased, but the disturbing emotions associated with them are resolved and new meaning can be drawn from them.
How is it different from other forms of therapy?
Unlike other treatments that focus on directly altering the emotions, thoughts and responses resulting from traumatic experiences, EMDR therapy focuses directly on the trauma memories. The EMDR therapy process is intended to change the way that the trauma memory is stored in the brain. The result of this is a gradual reduction in the emotional disturbance of trauma memories.