What is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR therapy, also known as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, is a method of mental health care. You must move your eyes precisely to process painful memories using this technique. Your recovery from trauma or other upsetting life events is the aim of EMDR. EMDR is a relatively recent therapy approach when compared to other types. In 1989, the first clinical study examining EMDR was conducted. Since EMDR's creation, many clinical trials have demonstrated its efficacy and ability to treat a person more quickly than many other techniques.

Who Requires EMDR Therapy?

People with a variety of mental health issues can benefit from EMDR. Adults of all ages, youths, and teenagers can gain from this treatment. Some medical professionals are also experts in EMDR for kids.

What Problems are Helped by EMDR?

Post-traumatic stress disorder is the condition for which EMDR is most frequently used (PTSD). The following conditions are also treated with it by mental healthcare professionals:

. Anxiety disorders include social anxiety/phobia, panic disorder, phobias;

. Depression disorders include major depressive disorder, and chronic depression;

. Dissociative disorders include depersonalization or derealization disorder, amnesia, and dissociative identity disorder;

. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder are examples of eating disorders;

. Male transphobia. Feeling your gender is different from the one assigned to you at birth;

. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), body dysmorphic disorder, and hoarding disorder are examples of obsessive-compulsive disorders;

. Borderline personality disorder, avoidant and antisocial personality disorder;

. Acute stress disorder, PTSD, and adjustment disorder are all trauma-related disorders.

Why is This Treatment Used?

Going into great detail about a traumatic event during EMDR therapy is unnecessary. Rather, EMDR emphasizes altering the feelings, ideas, or actions that follow a stressful encounter (trauma). It enables your brain's inherent mending mechanism to continue. The terms "mind" and "brain," sometimes used interchangeably, are two different things. One of your body's organs is your brain. The collection of memories, experiences, beliefs, and thoughts in your mind makes you who you are. The structure of your brain determines how your mind functions. Networks of brain cells in various locations communicate within that structure. It is especially true for passages that ask you to use your senses and memory. The collaboration between those locations is sped up and made simpler by the communication networks. Because of this, your senses can jog vivid memories, including sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and feelings.

Symptoms of Trauma 

Any patient feels trauma differently and in a variety of ways:

. Feeling drowsy: dissociation;

. Panic. Racing thoughts, quick, shallow breathing;

. Flashbacks. Reliving scenes of prior trauma in mind;

. Body Feelings. Reliving the physical symptoms of a traumatic incident when exposed to stimuli that trigger memories of the event, such as driving in cars, particular people who remind you of an abuser, scents, or sounds.

. Traumatic situations. Being triggered by the same season, time of year, or environment in which the traumatic event occurred;

. Chest constriction;

. Having a Freeze;

. Needing to flee;

. Having the impression that you must win others over to feel safe;

. Feeling dysregulated by conflict;

. Disorders of eating.

When the symptoms linked to trauma start to impede your quality of life and prevent you from enjoying your day-to-day activities, it is time to look inward and ask yourself if it's beneficial to continue trying to manage the symptoms alone.

What Part of the Brain is Affected by EMDR?

When you first encounter trauma, your brain and body associate specific stimuli around the traumatic event with risk. The post-traumatic incident causes your brain to go back into danger mode and release stress chemicals, putting you in a fight, flight, or freeze state when you are exposed to certain stimuli:

. people;

. locations; 

. specific emotions;

. scenarios.

As traumatic memories are stored in the body at the moment of the first traumatic incident, you can feel numb or experience certain bodily sensations. The body protects you from perceived danger by producing these physical sensations. Often, your body won't be able to distinguish between current, less dangerous events that trigger memories of prior trauma and past traumatic experiences.

Somatic Trauma Therapy

Patients with trauma can benefit from somatic trauma treatment, a particular kind of trauma therapy. This kind of therapy focuses on letting go of trapped trauma in the body. They can connect better profoundly with their internal processes, physical sensations, and persistent sentiments related to trauma thanks to bodily therapy. In this therapy, the trauma held in the body is accessed and released via physical sensations.

Talking During Therapy

Trauma is physically kept in the body, and many memories are hard to access through conversation therapy alone but stored in the body and subconscious mind. According to studies, somatic therapies like Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems, and AEDP enable the brain to enter a theta wave state, where stored trauma can be cleared away, and the brain can rewrite itself in the direction of a healthy connection. Advanced somatic therapies and procedures are used by trauma-aware counselors to access and release the trauma that has been stored in your body. Following research, somatic therapy can help Brian rewire itself and stop the loops of trauma re-emergence when you are exposed to circumstances that would typically trigger a trauma reaction.

Do the Therapy Disadvantages?

The answer is that it relies on how well the treatment is catered to your preparedness and capacity for bodily connection. Some persons should be cautious and open with their therapist about their experiences if they have trouble staying in touch with their body or frequently exhibit symptoms of dissociation. Working on coping mechanisms with your therapist is important so that you feel safe and supported during the therapeutic process. You can set yourself up for outstanding outcomes in somatic therapy by working in a secure environment with the ideal trauma therapist and having faith in your ability to pause whenever you need to and go at your own pace.

Advantages of EMDR

Most patients enter therapy with a long list of unwelcome symptoms, intending to identify and treat the underlying subconscious connections that cause the symptoms. Some people believe that trauma information therapy should concentrate on your early years and recount your life's events. Unfortunately, it is frequently not the case with somatic treatment. Instead, patients talk about recent experiences or circumstances that made them irritated or depressed during a session. These circumstances act as entry points into the body. The physical sensations that arise serve as a roadmap for resolving where the related trauma is locked and enabling you to release it through plenty of approaches.