EMDR Trauma Treatment – A Quick Guide
Here in our EMDR Trauma Treatment – A Quick, we give you the basic on EMDR, what is is, how it works helps
What Does EMDR stand for:
EMDR Treatment Principles:
- Basic eye movement stimulates the brain and body, allowing them to finish healing from traumatic memories.
EMDR Treatment Purpose:
- Supports the healing of traumatic events – Suitable for people managing Trauma and PTSD symptoms.
EMDR Treatment History:
- Discovered by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late ’80s
- EMDR treatment technique is one of the most tested and recommended trauma treatments.
- Endorsed by the US Department of Veteran Affairs.
EMDR Treatment Theory:
- When a disturbing event occurs, it’s not necessarily the event itself that harms us but how it is stored in our bodies.
- In the animal world, we see examples of prey bouncing back to relaxed states after being hunted by lions. How is this possible? On observation, after the hunting episode has been survived, you can witness the bodies of animals, like antelopes, physically shaking. This is the body releasing the ‘panic energy’ from its system, allowing the antipode to return to a peacefully grazing state.
- Unlike animals, human brains are more developed, and although our panic response is like the antelope, our smart human brains will, after the event, take over and add both logic and emotion to the experience.
- If that information gets stuck and is never processed, as often happens in trauma, it becomes energy trapped in the body.
- This can make us fearful, with any reminder of the event triggering a reaction in our body – Heart rate increase, sweaty palms etc.
EMDR – Eye Movement – EM:
- When talking about EMDR and “EM” or eye movement part is often likened to REM sleep. This is because the same back-and-forth eye that is seen in REM sleep is practised as part of EMDR treatment.
- Why? This back-and-forth movement, seen during REM sleep, connects the brain’s left and right hemispheres, engaging logic and emotion. This allows our brains to sort through events, placing them appropriately into a rational timeline rather than fragments of stuck memory.
- It is believed that bringing information forward allows the body to finish processing the traumatic energy.
EMDR – Desensitise Reprocessing – DR:
- The “DR’ part of EMDR helps to desensitise the trauma memory while reprocessing the information in a safe space.
- As the brain has a chance to process the traumatic memory correctly, most people find the impact of the event is eliminated or reduced. Often, irrational negative beliefs will have shifted towards more positive, hopeful ones.
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