EMDR Therapy
When you recall past events and react physically or emotionally, you may be experiencing trauma. Trauma affects how your brain responds to danger.
Trauma can show up in many ways, such as exhaustion, anxiety, being overly alert, panic attacks, digestive issues, and mood swings. These are all normal reactions to trauma.
EMDR therapy, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is one of the best ways to treat trauma. This therapy helps change the connection between your thoughts and emotions. It allows your brain to reprocess traumatic events, so you will not react in the same way to them anymore.
Our Approach
Trauma can disrupt your life, leaving you feeling broken after a traumatic event. Even if you try to compartmentalize your thoughts and feelings, they can affect every aspect of your life. You might attempt to numb unpleasant emotions, but this can prolong your suffering.
Our EMDR therapists help you reprocess trauma so that it no longer controls your life thus making healing possible.
Trauma isn't just emotional; it also impacts your body. Your nervous system may become more sensitive to certain triggers following a traumatic experience.
EMDR therapy helps you regain control by safely stimulating your nervous system, allowing you to reprocess events and reduce your reactivity. This therapy integrates both physical and emotional elements for a comprehensive approach to healing.
EMDR Therapy FAQs
Memories are stored as neural networks in the brain. Traumatic memories can form dysfunctional networks that hinder the processing and resolution of traumatic stress. These networks connect to other memories through triggers like smell, sight, emotions, and physical sensations but are disconnected from positive emotions.
Traumatic memories primarily reside in the right hemisphere, while positive emotions are in the left. This disconnect makes healing through positive reframing challenging.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy addresses this issue by using bilateral stimulation (BLS), such as moving lights or alternating taps. This stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, helping to integrate positive emotions and reduce the triggering effects of traumatic memories.
Many people believe that trauma is limited to those who have experienced extremely disturbing events. However, various situations can lead to trauma, such as abuse, natural disasters, witnessing violence, night terrors, anger, anxiety, depression, or shame.
If you believe you are experiencing trauma, EMDR can be beneficial. It may also aid in addressing issues such as anxiety, chronic pain, grief, eating disorders, fears, and addiction.
While most psychotherapy approaches focus on verbally processing emotions, EMDR also incorporates bodily sensations.
Our therapists have received specialized training in EMDR.