EMDR

A childhood memory affected Anna’s adult relationships.

Anna* came to me in her late 20s. She worked in fashion and dated frequently but felt fearful when in intimate situations with men. She didn’t know why because she had never experienced abuse or assault but worried that she had suppressed some traumatic memory.

We worked backward to find the source of Anna’s fear, which appeared to be associated with attempts at physical intimacy. Anna’s fear started with her first boyfriend; despite him being gentle and kind, she felt fear. More recently, when with a man, Anna still feels unsafe, causing her heart to pound.

Using bilateral stimulation, we traced Anna’s problem to a memory involving walking with her father as a child. As she reached up to hold his hand, he accidentally hit her. He picked her up and made sure she was okay. Although her father apologized, this moment crystalized in Anna’s memory as an experience of reaching up for affection and receiving pain instead.

We reprocessed that early memory. At the end of the session, Anna said she felt lighter and could date again without fear.

Like father, like son was not Chris’s desire.

Chris* was an attorney in his mid-30s. As a child, he suffered physical abuse from his father, although he indicated that it didn’t affect him and that he never thought about it.

After the birth of Chris’s son, everything changed. Chris became increasingly irritable and often yelled at his young son and wife. As a result, his wife asked him to move out.

I asked Chris to think about either the earliest incident of abuse he could remember or the worst incident. His most vivid memory involved his father standing over him with a raised fist. Chris could still feel the absolute terror he experienced.

We reprocessed this memory, and during the following session, I asked Chris to think about that memory again. He could no longer feel that terror and said, “I still remember it, but it feels like it happened to someone else.”

We continued reprocessing his abuse memories, and as the months passed, Chris felt his anger subside – relieved to be the kind of father he wished his father had been.

Trauma treatment is available and effective.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a therapy initially created as a treatment for trauma and PTSD and is also helpful for various other issues. Initially, EMDR involved the therapist moving their fingers back and forth in front of clients as they followed the movements with their eyes.

After applying EMDR for 30 years, we learned that, rather than eye movements, stimulating the brain’s two hemispheres made the difference because trauma gets stored in the right hemisphere as fragmented images.

Someone with PTSD may have flashbacks, seeing or hearing pieces of the original trauma without the full context of what happened. They feel transferred back to that traumatic moment and may react to that moment by yelling, running, or even becoming physically aggressive. These memories become frozen and not fully processed.

Language comes from the left hemisphere of the brain. So, there is no connection when we have trauma locked in the right hemisphere and go to therapy where we talk about the trauma from the left hemisphere. As a result, we can sometimes talk about trauma for years without improvement.

EMDR works by bridging the divide between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

We use various methods of bilateral stimulation to help the brain integrate and reprocess the traumatic memory, so it no longer feels like it’s happening right now. We can use eye movements, holding buzzers in each hand that alternatingly buzz left and right, or wearing headphones that alternatingly beep in your left and right ear. Any of these forms of bilateral stimulation can help jumpstart the brain’s ability to integrate a painful memory into the larger context of your life, removing the memory’s intensity.

Ask Anna and Chris – EMDR makes a difference.

After EDMR treatment, some clients say, “that was a long time ago. It’s over now,” or “that was something that happened to me, but it doesn’t define me anymore.”

Sometimes, we have negative beliefs about ourselves or behavior patterns we’d like to change, and we don’t know their source.

Using EMDR, we can trace these emotions and beliefs to find the moment we first experienced them. Gaining a new perspective allows us to reprocess that moment and create new positive memories, thoughts about ourselves, and healthier behaviors.

*Names changed to protect clients’ confidentiality.