Certified EMDR Therapist
& Trauma Therapy in Coral Springs
PTSD | PHOBIAS | GRIEF & LOSS | DEPRESSION | ANXIETY
What if I told you that, no matter what you’ve experienced in therapy or in life, you could harness the power of your brain to heal?
EMDR offers you the chance to access your most painful memories from a space of security and intention and truly heal.
EMDR therapy is a scientific process that is backed by a myriad of agencies in the United States and worldwide.
Standing apart from all other modalities we use at Haven Family Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy is unique. The process itself is different from the talk therapy of a stereotypical therapy session.
Adapted from PTSD treatments that were established in the late 1970s, EMDR is not interested in changing the emotional experiences you have. Your reactions, feelings, and impressions all stem from memories. Those memories are roots and EMDR seeks to change the very system of those roots in your mind.
EMDR is a successful treatment for…
Anxiety, Panic & Phobias
Depression & Grief
PTSD in Veterans
Chronic Pain & Illness
Natural Disasters
Accidents/ Injury
Physical & Sexual Abuse
Self-Esteem & Self-Worth
Insomnia
The EMDR Difference
The key difference between EMDR and many other therapies is that you won’t be subjected to re-traumatizing conversations that draw out and focus on the source of your struggles. It’s likely you’ll need fewer EMDR sessions to move through more in-depth issues and the process may look a bit different.
We’ll use bilateral stimulation like eye movement or tapping to help you access your memories while remaining firmly rooted in the present moment. The bilateral stimulation will support you in dulling the triggering impact of those memories while your therapist helps you to gently move through whatever comes up. As you work on remaining in the bilaterally stimulated headspace, your brain is working to make sense of your trauma through a gentle re-filing of the way your mind is processing that memory.
Work with a certified EMDR Therapist
When seeking EMDR therapy in Coral Springs and beyond, it's important to understand the difference between a therapist who is trained in EMDR and one who is certified. While both are qualified to provide EMDR therapy, certification signifies an additional level of expertise and commitment to this specialized approach to psychotherapy.
Certified EMDR therapists have honed their skills through additional hours of supervised practice and experience. This extended commitment to EMDR ensures a deeper understanding of the therapy and its applications and is especially valuable when working with complex trauma cases or when addressing specific clinical challenges. Choosing a certified EMDR therapist will help you feel confident in the EMDR therapy you’re receiving.
The EMDR PROCESS
1.
An overview of what’s happened
We’ll look at your history and identify the things you want to work through. From there, we will create a treatment plan or “target list” of distressing events/memories so we can begin in the most beneficial place for your healing.
2.
Getting Ready & Resourcing
We will establish some coping and stabilization techniques to help you feel safe and prepared for your session. The calming environment and your own soothing techniques will be resources you can lean on throughout the process.
3.
The Desensitization
Bilateral stimulation will begin as you are confronted with painful memories in a new light. The detachment offered will break old associations and offer you new insight that will help you heal.
4.
Acknowledging discoveries
Once your traumatic emotions have been reduced, we will review the events and the triggers you felt during the experience. We’ll take time to identify associated emotions and feelings that may linger or those that have been resolved.
5.
Reprocessing Experiences
We’ll use these to transform old feelings into your preferred thoughts. This is called preferred positive cognition and happens in tandem with a body scan that will help you to rewrite those painful associations. Part of restoring a sense of safety to your body will be to run through scenarios of how you might act differently in the future.
6.
The Somatic Piece
Through the body scan that occurs during your reprocessing, you are using your bodily distress to target the areas of the brain that store your pain. This targeted healing allows forward-thinking to resume so that pain can be released. This is the ultimate evidence of your healing.
Our EMDR therapists are passionate about ensuring you have a positive belief statement to carry with you so that it’s easy for you to return to the mindset EMDR helps you to achieve.
EMDR for Teens
EMDR is a particularly powerful tool in supporting teens who are healing. The steady, measurable progress of EMDR and personal power in leading their own healing gives teens back a measure of control that’s often lacking in their lives.
This gentle process encourages them to be the expert in their own lives and reinforces their power to act on it. The EMDR process is a confidence boost that helps to strengthen teens’ independence and track their progress in a measurable way.
Using EMDR with teens is an especially powerful modality to stop trauma in its tracks and reprocess traumatic events before they take over.
Being empowered to solve their own problems is a critical part of successfully supporting healing for teens.
Using EMDR with other resources is a powerful step in empowering their expertise. We use many tools to help them accomplish this, like these.
Safe Place Exercise
Container Exercise
Protector Exercise
Channeling Your Hero
An EMDR therapist for Teens
Through relatable and accessible tools alongside the EMDR itself, we can make this process even more relevant for teens who need support.
The bilateral nature of the stimulation lends itself well to using familiar daily terms (like “Tik Tok”) to call new associations forward.
It also cements the association between mental health and healing, tying together the root of trauma with the healing offered in the safety of a therapeutic relationship.
How will I know it’s working?
One of the scariest parts of trying something new and unfamiliar is not knowing how to tell if it’s going to be successful. It would be wonderful if operating on the hope that these new efforts were enough, but sometimes we all need a little bit of concrete reassurance that we’ll know our hope is well placed.
When EMDR is working, you’ll begin to notice less distress. The goal is to reduce your emotional distress and increase your natural coping capacity.
While EMDR is a rapid and effective way to move forward with your life, it requires a commitment to see these incredible benefits. Effective EMDR means a consistent routine of visits (between 5-8 for most clients) so that there is space for progress and healing within a therapeutically beneficial timeframe.
When EMDR works, it may look like:
Healthier thought processes
Better emotional regulation
Improved sleeping habits
Increased productivity
Elevated moods
Effective stress management
Enhanced memory
Boosted immune system
If EMDR sounds like something you’d benefit from or you have more questions, we’re here to support your curiosity with compassion and answers.