Trauma-Focused Therapy
An Emotional Wound Needs Air To Heal
“You alright?” You reply with “Yeah, I’m chill,” but you know you are not. You smile, but you feel a weight in your chest and a heaviness in your head all the time. Defensive, dismissive, moody, quick to “go off” or “read”—something is blocking your happiness and sabotaging your relationships.
Does This Resonate With You?
Are you experiencing distressing emotions that appear to you, and perhaps to others, to be excessive given the current situation? Do you tend to be highly reactive to certain triggers? Is there one or more negative beliefs that you hold about yourself that, on an intellectual level, you know is not true?
If so, you may be good candidate for EMDR therapy or other trauma-focused treatment.
We offer a number approaches to help you reclaim yourself and take back your peace of mind including Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy.
What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma. EMDR is a set of standardized protocols that incorporates elements from different treatment approaches.
What Does EMDR Therapy Look Like & How Does it Work?
EMDR therapy is an integrative psychotherapy and uses a technique called “bilateral stimulation” (BLS) to repeatedly activate opposite sides of the brain. Therapists often use eye movements to facilitate the bilateral stimulation. These eye movements mimic the period of sleep referred to as rapid eye movement or REM sleep, and this portion of sleep is frequently considered to be the time when the mind processes the recent events in the person’s life. EMDR helps the brain reprocess the trapped or distressing memory in such a way that normal information processing is resumed.
Your therapist will move their fingers back and forth in front of your face and ask you to follow a hand motions with your eyes. The therapist may also use other bilateral movements may include tapping on the body or musical tones in a left-right cadence. At the same time, the EMDR therapist will have you recall a disturbing event. This will include the emotions and body sensations that go along with it. Gradually, the therapist will guide you to shift your thoughts to more pleasant ones. Using the mechanism in which we store memory, in essence, you are remapping and reimagining emotional flashpoints from your past with present-day adaptive responses and resources.
Therapists often use EMDR to help clients uncover and reprocess beliefs that developed as the result of relational traumas, or childhood abuse and/or neglect. It is also used to process thoughts that contribute to anxiety and depression. For a more detailed explanation please visit EMDR Institute, Inc.
Sometimes, if we haven’t resolved a hurt in the past, it keeps us from moving forward, and the way forward in your life is through, with loving and skilled support.
Release Yourself