Beyond PTSD: What You Need to Know About EMDR
Have you ever picked up a book with a fascinating synopsis, only to open to the first page and find line after line of bland description? In literary terms, it’s often known as telling instead of showing—when an author informs you of the story instead of bringing you into the world they’ve created. These stories make you feel like you’re being told about an experience with a dispassionate play-by-play, rather than getting absorbed in the moment.
While this retelling keeps you numb (and bored), it also keeps you safe.
In therapy, these same experiences occur and it makes you feel like maybe therapy isn’t for you. Maybe you don’t belong in this space where you’re reviewing the past like a Viewfinder—knowing it, sharing it, but never truly feeling it because you just can’t connect with your past without risking too much pain. You’re telling your emotions instead of bringing your therapist into the experience of feeling them, and this feels like the right protective move for you. It might be, but it won’t help you heal.
If this sounds like your experiences with therapy or with life in general, EMDR might be the missing piece in your healing.
What’s EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, often abbreviated as EMDR, is a unique therapeutic process that’s designed to help you revisit your emotional experiences in their full depth without re-experiencing the trauma or initial intensity associated with having those experiences. EMDR is a blended therapy that does not begin and end with the repeated movements you’ll know it for it also ties in cognitive behavioral therapy, body awareness, and affirmative self-awareness.
Initially applied to clients with PTSD, this process begins by establishing a repetitive visual or physical experience to stimulate both hemispheres of the mind into a state of detached openness. Moving through the process of EMDR allows you to revisit the story of your life, not in the dispassionate way that you’ve developed to survive, but in a way that still keeps you safe from the full intensity of your pain. Without ever having to speak it aloud, EMDR seeks to rewrite the pattern of trauma that has domain over your thoughts and feelings.
If you are ready to heal and want things to change, EMDR might be for you even if you do not have PTSD.
The many hats of healing that EMDR wears
Trauma
For many people, trauma is a chronic experience instead of a single moment. These repeated experiences make it easier for your mind to detach, and in this space, new processes can set in as you try to remain removed from those kinds of pain. The unique process of EMDR asks your mind to remove its expectations and put in the work to process an experience in a new way.
Anxiety and depression
If you have anxiety or depression that’s been unresponsive to other treatments but continues to have a hold over your life and thoughts, there is hope. EMDR may be the missing link in supporting your current therapeutic relationship with a deeper dive into the past in order to move forward.
Phobias
Phobias are not the same as fear. No matter the source of your phobia, if your life is ruled by your response to a trigger, EMDR can help you take back your power. For many phobias, the repetition of EMDR is the key to finding relief where other treatment tools have failed to break through the surface.
Grief
Bereavement is life-shattering, and the impact of grief can be consuming. EMDR has a beautiful way of bringing you peace. Reprocessing allows you to bring forward the positive experiences into the here and now so you can carry that love with you moving forward. Grief may change you indelibly, but EMDR allows you to determine where that change settles.
OCD
A large body of research by the EMDR Foundation has drawn some direct links between EMDR and the treatment of OCD, primarily in adolescents. If you’re living with OCD and not getting the relief you need with CBT alone, I can walk with you along with the exploration of EMDR as a supporting option for your healing.
Attachment, EMDR, and YOU
A modified form of EMDR has begun to emerge in recent years that focuses on attachment theory. If you’re not familiar, this theory helps you understand the impact of the relationships you’ve built in childhood and their effect on relationship building in your current life. Attachment-based EMDR focuses on these relationships and connections. Doing attachment work through EMDR is a key way to help you develop healthier internal and external attachments. \
Do one or more of these things sound like the experience you’re looking for? If you’re reading this and worrying that you’ll be stuck in the same, tired retelling without actual change, I encourage you to ask yourself a few questions.
3 Questions to ask yourself when considering EMDR treatment
Are you ready to see permanent change in your thoughts and life?
Do you have support and coping tools to keep yourself safe through EMDR treatment?
Can you commit to showing up for yourself?
Examine your needs, strengths, and truths in as much detail as you need, and visit this page to learn more about EMDR as a whole. When you’re ready, I’ll be here to support you with whatever next steps feel best.
