VIRTUAL & IN-PERSON
EMDR: Bridging the Gap Between What You “Know” and What You “Feel”
EMDR stands for ‘Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.’
It is an evidence-based therapy designed to alleviate distress associated with disturbing experiences, and there are numerous studies documenting its effectiveness.
EMDR is considered a ‘bottom up’ style of therapy, as opposed to a ‘top down’ approach such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT.) ‘Top’ and ‘bottom’ refer to sections of the brain, as the ‘top’ of the brain is generally believed to contain areas that control functions like cognition, speech, decision-making, and the ‘bottom’ of the brain contains the instinctive responses, emotions, and memories. (The brain is truly more complicated than this, but this is just where the terminology comes from.)
An effective treatment for trauma.
EMDR is a ‘bottom up’ approach because it directly targets these components of the ‘bottom’ of the brain, and works on building a flexible nervous system, body connectedness, and managing raw emotions. These approaches are best suited for trauma, or even chronic stress/stuck beliefs because the symptoms and distress are often rooted in the brain’s wiring/nervous system. There are automatic defenses that come up first. We can’t bypass these responses with rationality.
Top down approaches are also great therapeutic tools, especially when used in conjunction with bottom-up approaches.
EMDR can be truly transformative.
If you are struggling with persistent negative beliefs about yourself, having disproportionate responses in the face of stressors, or feeling a negative impact from a disturbing situation (like the memory feels too strong, it comes to you intrusively, it brings on a strong emotional response, it feels disturbing to speak about it and speaking about it makes things feel worse), EMDR can help.
HOW EMDR WORKS
EMDR is based on the theory that our brains are designed to process information and make sense of the world around us. They absorb our experiences and file them in a way that helps us learn from them and use them to navigate life. However, this ‘filing system’ system can get overwhelmed by trauma or distress.
This can cause memories to be ‘unprocessed,’ meaning the feelings, thoughts, and sensations linked to the event don’t get integrated into your overall understanding.
When this happens, thinking of the memory may feel really bad, almost like your brain doesn’t know it’s over. Pieces of it may feel distressing, or come up unexpectedly.
EMDR’s goal is to get our memories to a place of “adaptive resolution”- to get the brain to properly file these memories so that they can be looked at, understood, and learned from.
If you are unfamiliar with EMDR or have heard about EMDR and are curious to try it, especially if you have tried other forms of therapy and want to try a different approach, I will happily discuss it with you during our intake.
We can speak specifically about what parts appeal to you and how we can integrate it into your treatment.
If you already have a primary therapist and are curious about adding in EMDR work, I also offer it as adjunctive treatment to your ongoing therapy.