What is EMDR?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a structured approach that treats trauma by safely reconnecting individuals with the traumatic images, thoughts, emotions, and body sensations they experienced, leveraging the brain’s natural healing process—Adaptive Information Processing (AIP).
Unlike traditional talk therapy, which often focuses on the traumatic event itself, EMDR targets the emotional disturbances and symptoms stemming from the trauma. The goal is to process these troubling memories, reduce their impact, and help clients develop healthier coping mechanisms.
Through EMDR, memories are transferred from the emotional part of the brain (limbic system) to long-term storage, transforming them from intrusive relived experiences into memories of past events that no longer wield disruptive power.
What to Expect
In EMDR therapy, you will go through a structured process involving eight phases, focusing on past, present, and future aspects of a traumatic memory. During sessions, the therapist will guide you through a series of eye movements or other bilateral stimulations, such as rhythmic tapping, to help process and reduce the distress associated with traumatic memories.
Benefits of EMDR
EMDR therapy helps clients reprocess and reconsolidate traumatic memory or memories so that the painful memories associated with past trauma lose their emotional charge. Once this happens, clients react to stimuli in the present without the past interfering.
The benefits of EMDR can include:
- Rapid Processing of Trauma: EMDR can accelerate the therapy process by resolving the impact of past traumas and allowing normal healing to resume.
- Decreased Emotional Distress: Helps diminish the emotional charge associated with traumatic memories.
- Improved Present Behavior: Clients often experience a significant improvement in their reactions to daily situations that previously triggered trauma responses.
- Creating New Meanings: After trauma processing, clients begin to make new meanings and associations so they no longer project faulty narratives onto new situations and life events.
Our Approach to EMDR
At Touchstone Trauma Therapy we understand the profound impact trauma can have on an individual’s life and are committed to delivering the highest quality of care. Our approach is centered around creating a safe, respectful, and confidential environment supporting each client’s recovery journey.
A key aspect of our trauma therapy is establishing a therapeutic relationship that fosters safety and compassion. We implement an 8-stage EMDR model beginning with a comprehensive assessment and history taking.
This includes teaching effective Resourcing Skills used during the EMDR processing phase, where we employ Bilateral Stimulation (BLS) to shift traumatic memories from the brain’s emotional center to long-term storage. This process diminishes distress, allowing memories to be perceived as past events rather than immediate experiences.
