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EMDR Therapy

(Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing)

EMDR is a researched based therapy that encourages the patient to focus on the disturbing issue or trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements or pulses in your hands). This process encourages integration in the brain which reduces the negative experiences and thoughts associated with the trauma memories.

How EMDR can help

  • helps you break through the emotional blocks that are keeping you from living an adaptive, emotionally-healthy life.

  • helps you update disturbing experiences, similar to what occurs while an individual sleeps.

What does an EMDR session look like?

STEP 1

You will express and explore your concerns. Your therapist will guide you in finding where to begin. There will be some history taking as well as regulating strategies to help prepare you for EMDR.

STEP 2

You will then be asked a set of questions to access and activate the negative experience(s) and the desired adaptive resolution. Sets of rapid eye movements (or other forms of bilateral stimulation) will be applied. Emotions and sensations may surface during processing; although you will be prepared and your therapist will help you safely manage them. You will then be encouraged to “free associate” and allow your brain to work through the experience. Sets of eye movements will be alternated with brief reports about what you are experiencing. EMDR processing will continue until the past experience has been updated to an adapted present perspective. With long-standing issues, this process may take multiple sessions.

STEP 3

Once the disturbing experiences(s) have been updated, you and your therapist will work together to integrate these new insights and perspectives into your daily life.

✺ Frequently asked questions ✺

  • EMDR uses a set of procedures to organize a person’s negative and positive feelings, emotions, and thoughts and then uses bilateral stimulation such as eye movements or alternating tapping, as the way to help one effectively work through those disturbing memories. EMDR breaks through emotionally-charged experiences that often interfere with one’s minds updating process and helps an individual let go of the past and update their experiences to a healthier present perspective.

  • No, in EMDR it is not necessary to talk about all the details of your experiences for them to be processed. EMDR is believed to be like “free association” of the brain in which twenty minutes of an EMDR session can be equivalent to five hours of talk therapy.

  • No. During EMDR processing, you are present and fully in control with the ability to stop at anytime.

  • As with all approaches to treatment, EMDR will help you accomplish your treatment goals, but the length of time it takes is dependent upon the complexity of the presenting issues. Frequently, EMDR is only one of several treatment approaches that will be used to help you reach your therapeutic goals..

EMDR Therapists