Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of mind-body energy work used most extensively for trauma and abuse recovery, and it has been quite successful for such other issues as anxiety, depression, chronic pain, addiction, and low self-esteem/self-confidence. Watch our video explaining EMDR.
Francine Shapiro, PhD, originally developed EMDR after noting that, following a walk she’d taken while thinking of her painful relationship with her father, she felt better. As a clinical researcher, Shapiro was curious as to why this happened and dedicated the next several decades of her life researching the targeted effects of bilateral stimulation on resolving past traumas.
Walking, by the way, is a mild form of bilateral stimulation. However, Shapiro found that side-to-side eye movements, audial tones, and alternate vibrations felt on our hands or feet were much more effective, and more easily adapted to the therapeutic session.
When we experience something that is traumatic to us—in our own subjective processing—the memory of that event is stored in another part of the brain, away from the rest of our own memories. Typically, memories are stored in the pre-frontal cortex of our brain, the part of our brain that is responsible for higher cognitive functioning, analysis, judgment, and impulse control.
Traumatic memories, on the other hand, are stored in the amygdala, or “reptile brain,” along with the limbic system, or “emotion central.” This is not a place for judgment, analytical reason, or impulse control. And so it makes sense that when triggered by a reminder of traumatic memory, we can feel “hijacked” by our brains into behaving irrationally—ration cannot, at that moment, be accessed.
The goal of EMDR therapy is to reprocess these distressing memories by applying bilateral stimuli in the present while recalling the traumatic event. In essence, the juxtaposition of the two creates a “defrag program” for your brain, refiling the memories where they properly belong. This process reduces lingering effects and actually transforms negative self-beliefs related to the event into positive, affirming self-beliefs. With EMDR, it is quite possible to reduce one’s distress about a particular memory to an absolute zero.
We offer this powerful and effective tool for trauma recovery for both our English and Spanish-speaking clients.
