EMDR was first used to help people with stressful or traumatic life events. This unique therapy can help you manage the memories, feelings, physical sensations, and negative self-limiting thoughts that you may be re-living from those earlier life situations or trauma. Stress and trauma can be big or small. They can be single experiences or recurring stressors, such as:
- being bullied as a child
- stressful life changes
- difficult relational stressors or losses
- traumatic or repeated losses
- oppression, harassment, racism
- accidents or injuries
- exposure to or being victim of violence, abuse, or assault
- exposure to or being a victim of natural disaster
- exposure to or being a victim of war
- first responder experiences
- having a history of neglect
- extended grief
Over time, it has been shown to be effective for more than trauma and PTSD!
What else can EMDR help with?
It has been helpful in getting at the root of panic, anxieties, mood disturbances/depressive experiences, phobias, some pain experiences, and more!
Mindful Way Counseling, has highly trained EMDR therapists to help you work through any of these concerns. We are conveniently located just 5 miles north of NE Minneapolis in Fridley, MN. Our therapists will be happy to talk with you about if this therapy might be right for you!
EMDR Providers at Mindful Way Counseling include:
How is it different than standard talk therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is different than talk therapy.
Talk therapy requires you to talk through your presenting concern. Talking in detail about the history that contributes to your presenting problem. This may help to bring emotions to the surface. Talk therapy focuses on finding a solution by paying attention to patterns of behavior. It uses logic, but often what is holding us back isn’t about logic and does not feel logical. Often times our clients say they’ve tried talking about something without resolution. That’s very normal, sometimes talking isn’t enough.
EMDR is different!
This therapy links together the various ways that experiences are stored: memory/images, emotions, body sensations, and thoughts. All of these are associated with our life experiences. Paying attention to all of these together, in a specific way, supports healing and growth. Connecting all aspects of our experience, we can enact the most significant change.
EMDR additionally helps to get to the core of what is making you stuck, without getting stuck in the logic. This is generally not stored in a logical way or you would have figured it all out by now, and this is why you’re looking for help!
The Approach
It is an evidence-based intervention that helps people heal from difficult, disturbing, or traumatic or distressing life experiences. It is integrative in its approach and includes a set of standard protocols and phases.
Including:
- history taking and treatment planning
- preparation and skills
- assessment of the distressing event(s) or situation(s)
- reprocessing the traumatic or distressing situation to allow for desensitization of the stressor (reduced intensity of emotion)
- increasing the strength of positive beliefs (thinking more positively about it)
- reducing physical body tension (less physical distress)
- Through these phases, we address the
- past memories,
- current triggers,
- plan for future success
One underlying principle of this therapy is that the mind is geared toward health. Stressful or disturbing situations can block the brain’s natural inclination toward health. EMDR helps the brain become unblocked again to regain health and healing.
It is an evidence-based model and has helped millions of people of all ages to relieve the symptoms of psychological distress.
Eye Movements may be used as bilateral stimulation that mimics what happens during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. In REM sleep, our eyes shift left and right in a rapid back and forth motion. While many clinicians still use Eye Movements, there are now multiple bilateral stimulation (alternating physical input) strategies that may be used in conjunction with or instead of eye movements.