emdr therapy
I also offer EMDR therapy. What the heck is that? Officially it’s called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. EMDR was developed to treat and reduce symptoms related to trauma.
Well what is trauma? I describe trauma as an experience that has recalibrated your nervous system. Now your body physically tells you “uh oh, this is not good, this is scary,” your heart might skip a beat or you can’t catch your breath when you’re exposed to something that scares you. This process could happen in situations like being intimate with someone for the first time, being in a tightly confined space, shutting down or tearing up when someone provides constructive feedback, phobias, driving with anxiety, fear to commit in relationships, etc.
Even if you don’t have a specific memory from the past you find troubling, we can target reoccurring present experiences (I always yell when I feel criticized, I’m scared to express my feelings, etc. - but I don’t know why), EMDR therapy can help you find the answers.
OK so how does it work?
We will use some type of bilateral stimulation (alternating left vs. right) such as side stepping, hand buzzers, moving eyes side to side, headphones with alternating beeping, tapping chest or legs while we talk through an experience that presently bothers you.
Bilateral stimulation taxes your working memory and your brain is forced to “drop” the troubling and disturbing emotions connected to the experience you are using EMDR therapy to process. Basically, your brain has to choose to drop something in order to keep up with the bilateral, so it drops the negative emotions and thoughts. Thus, when you complete EMDR the “thing that bugged you” will no longer bug you, or certainly not as much as it used to.
EMDR will help us identify the root of your problems, an active negative core belief. Trauma functions similar to weeds. Symptoms we can see above the surface will be behaviors like binge eating, substance abuse, performance anxiety, but EMDR allows us to see below the surface and uncover/remove a negative root or core belief (I’m not safe, I’m not good enough, I’m unlovable, I’m powerless…) When we pull the root, symptoms will subside and avoids regrowth of the same problem.