Trauma Therapy

One of the therapeutic methods we offer is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a psychotherapy technique that has been proven to be effective in treating trauma. EMDR helps individuals process their traumatic memories in a safe and controlled way, allowing them to move forward and regain control over their lives.

Disturbing events can be stored in the brain in an isolated memory network. This prevents learning from taking place. The old material just keeps getting triggered over and over again. In another part of your brain, in a separate network, is most of the information you need to resolve it. It’s just prevented from linking up to the old stuff. Once we start processing with EMDR, the two networks can link up. New information can come to mind and resolve the old problems. Although unpleasant pictures, sensations, or emotions may come up as we do dual attention stimuli, either eye movements or the tapping back and forth, you can stop the process whenever you want simply by raising your hand like this (demonstrate this action). It is best to allow the dual attention stimuli to continue as long as possible, but if things feel too rough, we can stop and you can rest. 

The idea is that if you want to drive through a dark tunnel quickly, you keep your foot on the accelerator. If you take your foot off, your car slows down and coasts. So, to get through the unpleasant emotions, keeping the dual attention stimuli going will get us through more quickly. As we do the sets of dual attention stimuli try to remember that we are only processing old stuff. It may feel real, but it’s just the old memories locked in the brain. Just because you feel fear, does not mean there is a real tiger in the room. The idea is to let the brain become unlocked, and let the information process through. As we process the information and digest the old events, pictures, sensations, or emotions may arise but your job is just to notice them, just to let them happen. Imagine you are on a train and the scenery is passing by. Just notice the scenery without trying to grab hold of it or make it significant.