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What Is Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), And How Can It Help Me?
Over time, you may have encountered varying traumatic experiences, and those disturbing memories get stuck in your mind. These memories may contribute to Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, or other uncomfortable feelings, reactions, or emotions you experience. That’s when Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) can help individuals who are “stuck” in stress response actions knowingly or unknowingly.
EMDR is a structured non-traditional and interactive psychotherapy technique developed to relieve psychological stress and help process the brain’s distressing memories of these traumatic events or experiences you may or may not specifically recall. Read on to find out the efficacy and role of EMDR therapy which can be delivered via an online video platform.
What Should You Expect From the EMDR Treatment?
EMDR in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and New Jersey aims to help patients learn helpful ways to move on with their lives and not have a distressing reaction to disturbing past events. In an EMDR treatment, you first develop a supportive relationship with your therapist, who asks you to recall specific incidents from your past. While the therapy will include multiple sessions, its sole purpose would be to replace negative thoughts and traumatic experiences with healthier thoughts and positive associations.
EMDR therapy does not require talking in detail about the distressing issue or completing homework between sessions. EMDR therapy, rather than focusing on changing the emotions, thoughts, or behaviors resulting from the distressing issue, allows the brain to resume its natural healing process. EMDR therapy is designed to resolve unprocessed traumatic memories in the brain (EMDR International Association, 2021).
A healthy EMDR treatment session can last from 50- 90 minutes and uses the patient’s own rapid, rhythmic eye movements, like in REM sleep, to help devitalize the power of emotionally charged memories of past traumatic events through bilateral stimulation. For example, bilateral stimulation could involve:
- Tapping movements on different sides of your body
- Tones you hear through one ear than the other wearing headphones
- Moving your eyes from side to side
At Heart and Mind Counseling, the professional therapists are skilled at treating patients using online Eye Movement Desensitization Reprogramming (EMDR) therapy.
Who Can Benefit From EMDR Therapy?
Apart from the patients with PTSD symptoms and trauma-related behaviors, EMDR can also help children suffering from emotional, behavioral, and mental difficulties. According to EMDR International Association (2021), EMDR therapy can be used to address a wide range of issues:
- Anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias
- Chronic Illness and medical issues
- Depression and bipolar disorders
- Dissociative disorders
- Eating disorders
- Grief and loss
- Pain
- Performance anxiety
- Personality disorders
- PTSD and other trauma and stress-related issues
- Sexual assault
- Sleep disturbance
- Substance abuse and addiction
- Violence and abuse
While patients can always benefit from counseling, EMDR in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and New Jersey is best if they want to eliminate the negative feelings of past traumas altogether.
Effectiveness of EMDR Therapy
You might wonder or doubt the idea of moving your eyes while recalling those painful memories. But, both experts and research studies prove that recalling distressing events may feel less pain when they are not given full attention, just like in the EMDR therapy.
Here, we have enlisted a few benefits of EMDR therapy:
1. Transform your negative beliefs into positive ones
2. Assist in relieving depression, anxiety, nightmares, grief, abuse, and other traumas
3. Help you unburden life stresses
4. It delivers quicker results than trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and individual counseling in Colorado, New Jersey, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.
5. Help improves relationships, work performance, creativity, and overall health
6. Offer effective results and recovery from past traumatic experiences
7. It can help reduce emotional despair after negative experiences
8. It may help ease somatic symptoms, like pain or muscle tension
To put it in another meaning, the bilateral stimulation (BLS) used in EMDR in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and New Jersey helps dim the intensity of your memory and blur out the unwanted thoughts, so you can focus on replacing them with the good and positive memories.
Book Your Appointment With Our Expert Therapists Today!
The Heart and Mind Counseling experts are committed to helping patients take better control of their upsetting thoughts and offer you effective EMDR in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and New Jersey. Reach out to us to know more about our EMDR therapy sessions and start your healing journey with our individual counseling experts.
Call us or email (links at the bottom of this page) for a free 20-minute consultation.
Reference:
About EMDR therapy. EMDR International Association. (2021, December 13). Retrieved April 26, 2022, from https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/
