Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Painful thoughts and memories still haunt you…

What nightmares will come tonight? It’ll be another night of sleep lost.

“I dread going to bed.”

Your partner and friends have done everything they can to help and support you.

“I don’t want to burden you with the same story anymore.”

You avoid places or triggers.

“I’ll have to cancel plans tonight… again.”

It’s exhausting, and you’re sick of carrying around feelings of anxiety and insecurity.

“But it wasn’t THAT bad.”

I hear that statement a lot, especially from people who grew up in a household with domestic violence and physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Everyone has SOME degree of trauma in life, and the degree of that trauma is super subjective.

Sometimes it’s “Big T” trauma, like rape, physical violence, acts of war, natural disasters, auto accidents, the suicide of loved ones, or murder.

And sometimes it’s “Little T” trauma – things like public humiliation (online and in real life), infidelity (either being cheated on or being the cheater), arrests and incarceration, addiction, or job loss.

There are varying degrees in between, but no trauma is too big or too small to contend with.

Anything that overwhelms the brain can cause lasting consequences.

If you don’t deal with it, that is.

You’ve probably already suffered some of those consequences. Lack of sleep generally tops the list, along with restlessness, paranoia, and avoidance of “triggers.”

Relationships struggle and often end when you have unprocessed trauma. It’s simply too hard to connect when you’ve already lost so much.

You are more than what happened to you.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a trauma intervention that uses a series of eye movements to help retrain how your brain stores trauma.

Using visual targets, you will scan your eyes back and forth with the assistance of a metronome that helps replicate the REM process in dreaming. REM sleep is associated with memory and emotional processing.

Bringing up traumatic memories and negative thoughts associated with those memories while engaging in eye movement helps move the trauma out of the amygdala, the portion of the brain responsible for keeping you safe.

If you were hit by a red car, your brain might see every red car as a threat until it learns otherwise. EMDR is a safe way to help calm the overwhelmed brain so that it can learn to distinguish threats from non-threats.

EMDR sessions always end with guided meditations and techniques to restore a sense of emotional regulation and well-being.

Put out the fire that’s been burning in your brain.

EMDR is a unique intervention that, when coupled with compassionate guidance, can offer insight and relief from the impact of trauma.

Please understand that the goal is to help and heal… not to re-traumatize you. Please call me if you have questions about the approaches I take to protect my clients from being overwhelmed by their feelings.

Yes, you survived. But wouldn’t it be nice to level up to “thrive”?

EMDR is not always the best intervention, but call me today, and we can see if it’s right for you: (720) 797-9828.