Introduction to EMDR Therapy

July 23, 2024

How does EMDR therapy work? What is it like?

These are common questions when starting EMDR therapy.

Here's my absolute favorite video to explain what EMDR is, how EMDR works, and the benefits of EMDR for different therapies.

For your convenience, you can follow along with the transcript below as well.

Introduction to EMDR Therapy Transcript

0:05

[Music]

0:15

There is still this perception  that going to seek out mental health is  

0:22

a sign of weakness you should be tough  enough to handle this or you should be  

0:27

able to work through this and nothing  could be further from the truth. [Music]

0:37

Sometimes we have difficult experiences that  change what we believe about ourselves and  

0:43

the world around us. And all  of us have those experiences.

0:50

When I started adding in EMDR I  was amazed at the speed at which  

0:59

they could process through these  tragic losses and get to a place  

1:06

of starting to find some peace around what  had really been unimaginable pain for them.

1:16

Sometimes people will say well I wouldn't need  EMDR 'cos I don't have these huge horrific things  

1:22

that happen to me. Some of those traumas are not  people shooting at you or car wrecks. For example,  

1:28

if you're in sixth grade middle school  and you're reading a book report and  

1:32

everybody's laughing at you because  you have horrible acne, that's a trauma.

1:38

EMDR is useful and appropriate for people  across the lifespan. Multiple presentations,  

1:47

multiple kinds of struggles, and multiple  types of abilities. I have found it to  

1:52

be an extremely successful choice for just  about anyone who walks in the door. [Music]

2:00

So the whole point behind trauma treatment  is to help an individual move past or process  

2:09

that trauma to where the brain is not  reacting as if it's still in danger.

2:13

Let's take a brief look at what happens  when we experience trauma. Our brains  

2:21

have a natural way to recover from traumatic  memories and events. This process involves  

2:27

communication between the amygdala,  the alarm system for stressful events,  

2:31

the hippocampus, which assists with learning  including memories about safety and danger,  

2:37

and the prefrontal cortex, which  controls behavior and emotion.

2:43

While many times traumatic experiences can  be managed and resolves spontaneously, some  

2:51

experiences may not be processed without help.  Stress responses are part of our natural fight,  

2:58

flight, or freeze instincts. When distress from  a disturbing event remains, the upsetting images,  

3:05

thoughts, and emotions may create feelings of  being overwhelmed, of being back in that moment,  

3:11

or of being frozen in time. EMDR therapy  helps the brain process these memories  

3:18

and allows normal healing to resume. The  experience is still remembered but the fight,  

3:25

flight, or freeze response from  the original event is resolved.

3:30

For example, if someone were hiking and  you encounter a bear, our nervous system  

3:35

is automatically going to respond. And what can  happen is if we safely get out of that situation,  

3:40

but we still have that experience  stored in that part of our brain,  

3:45

the next time we go on a hike and  we hear maybe a rustling in the  

3:49

tree then our nervous system is going  to continue to respond in some way.

3:53

One of the tricks that can happen  is our mind convinces us that we're  

3:58

still reliving those memories  we're not just remembering them.

4:02

Trauma and unprocessed painful experiences  from the past is not a psychological thing,  

4:12

it doesn't mean that someone is weak  psychologically. It's not a character issue,  

4:17

it's a brain thing. That events occurred that  increased levels of stress that interfered with  

4:28

the brain's ability to process the inflow  of information and that information got  

4:35

stuck in the nervous system, it did not  have the opportunity to get processed.

4:39

We're explaining trauma as an understandable  biological event that has happened. A change  

4:47

in the neurological linkage of your brain and how  can you be ashamed of that? If you break your arm,  

4:53

how are you ashamed that that arm is broken?  No, I got a broken arm, I need to fix it.

4:58

What actually is being fixed is neurological.  The outcome of that is a cognitive shift,  

5:05

is it you don't actually believe  that you are helpless anymore.

5:10

Once a client comes to a session and has  completed history-taking then typically  

5:18

we identify the memory that we want to reprocess,  any negative beliefs related to it. Those negative  

5:25

beliefs might be I'm not safe, I'm not worthy, I  don't have value in relationship to other people.  

5:33

And once we identify that negative belief and  the distress related to that target memory,  

5:38

we also look at what could be a  positive belief that we move toward.

5:43

Folks think about this memory and then we guide  them through a series of sets of rapid eye  

5:51

movement. Just 30 seconds, it allows the brain  then to process small chunks of it at a time.

6:01

That dual attention, bilateral work keeps  the body here in the room, keeps the person  

6:08

grounded in their body, creates this rhythm that  speaks safety and is ideal for making meaning by  

6:17

keeping someone focused on the present while  accessing things that happened in the past.

6:22

It's kinder. It's a gentler way of treating  trauma than having to open old wounds

6:32

and stare at them ‘til one of you blink.

6:35

When we stop a set they're going  wow I feel so much lighter,  

6:42

I feel like a weight has been lifted, I  feel peaceful like something's much better.

6:50

One of the things that I most commonly  notice at the end of a successful EMDR  

6:57

session is a child who just feels  more understood and more seen and  

7:04

more cared for. And they just have  a different presence in their eyes.

7:08

[Music] EMDR is one of the most researched  therapies out there and the research shows  

7:21

that not only is it highly effective but it's  also the most efficient trauma treatment.

7:31

When I went to the training and I saw  the first demonstration I recognized how  

7:36

absolutely effective that those techniques would  be with processing trauma quickly, without a lot  

7:44

of language being needed to describe it, and how  beneficial that was to a lot of our crime victims  

7:52

who weren't able to actually articulate  all the events that had happened. [Music]

7:57

EMDR therapy is proving effective in  some of the most acute trauma scenarios.  

8:09

And because it is a proven evidence-based  approach, a growing roster of mental health  

8:16

organizations promote and support the therapy.

8:18

There's so much trauma worldwide and  here it is that we have this ability  

8:32

to so effectively and efficiently  treat trauma. The question is,  

8:39

how can we make it available? How  can we give people access to it?

8:46

What I love in the work that I get to do is  watching someone come into contact with the  

8:54

part of themselves that's previously only been  confusing and disorienting and all of a sudden  

9:01

find mastery over how to make meaning about that  experience or that character trait or that memory.

9:10

What a wonderful thing to witness. I  feel so lucky to be able to do EMDR.

9:15

The feedback that I get from clients who  have really gone through the process of  

9:20

EMDR and able to complete EMDR therapy  is that their lives are transformed.

9:25

I never thought there would be a breakthrough  like that in my career as a psychologist. [Music]