Many serious emotional traumas experienced in the past constantly remind you of yourself and do not allow you to move on. EMDH therapy will help start the natural process of healing the psyche with eye movement. We understand what it is, how it works and what to expect at the first session.
EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy can help heal old emotional wounds by rewiring your brain and allowing you to leave the past in the past and move forward to your own happiness.
Something similar happens in a dream – in one of the phases of sleep, our eyes move quickly in different directions, while we see dreams. Just as sleep helps us make sense of what happened during the day and translate information from short-term to long-term memory, EMDR therapy helps us rethink old traumatic memories.
EMDR allows healing of traumas, in particular those associated with past abuse
To put you into a state similar to rapid eye movement sleep, EMDR therapy uses special movements, light and sound stimuli. Once you have entered the right state, a certified EMDR therapist will invite you to mentally address the traumatic memory and then guide you through the process of rethinking and processing.
The purpose of this type of therapy is to become aware of your traumas, understand how they affect your life, and finally put them in the past in order to move on.
Stages of DPDH therapy
1. First, the therapist needs to gather information about you and your symptoms.
The therapist will ask you to talk about the traumatic experiences that made you decide to see him. It is important to talk about them openly and honestly, because the therapist’s task is to help you “be present in the present moment” and transfer all the experiences that may arise during the session.
2. You will then be asked to imagine a place that makes you feel peaceful and at peace.
You can choose a place both real and imaginary – the main thing is that you associate it with a sense of peace and well-being. It can be, for example, a beach on the ocean or a forest.
3. Next, the therapist will determine the purpose for which you will work with the EMDR technique.
The goal of the work should include four components:
- a mental image or picture representing the most difficult part of the traumatic memory;
- experiences associated with the most difficult part of this image;
- bodily sensations associated with the image;
- negative self-image-related beliefs.
The exact approach may vary depending on the therapist and their individual technique, but the goal of this phase of therapy is always to find the peak of traumatic memories and activate it, so that later on you can, at the right time, by willpowering the experiences and sensations associated with the trauma.
4. You will work on your chosen goal with bilateral stimulation.
Bilateral stimulation simply means something that causes your body to shift its attention from the right side to the left side.
This can be achieved through eye movements, such as simply moving them left and right, following a strip of light, or following the therapist’s fingers. You can also use sound sources for this purpose – beeps or calls, which the therapist will move from right to left and vice versa.
Once bilateral stimulation has begun, the therapist will ask you to remember your chosen “goal” and rate the level of discomfort caused by those memories (at their beginning, middle, and end) on a scale of 1 to 10, where 0 is no discomfort at all and 10 is the worst feeling. of the possible.
It is important to be honest with your therapist about your feelings.
When you mentally activate the target, the therapist will initiate a two-way stimulation that will help process the pain associated with it.
Sometimes he may pause to inquire about your condition and clarify how the process is going. You just need to describe to him how you feel at the moment. Are your experiences changing? Do you have any questions or concerns? Has your mental image changed? Perhaps new details came to mind?
It is important to tell the therapist honestly about your experiences, without changing or hiding anything. The more honest you are, the better he can help you. Your brain processes the experience, and it will reveal to the therapist what needs to be treated.
5. You will evaluate your well-being after a session of bilateral stimulation.
After processing has reduced the intensity of the discomfort caused by the “target” memories, the therapist will ask you something like this: “What did you learn that you did not know before?”
By processing traumatic memories with bilateral stimulation, your brain can become aware of something new and important, for example: “I have the right to satisfy my needs”, “I am not alone”, “I am a valuable and worthy person”. All of these are so-called positive affirmations (statements).
The brain can continue processing experiences even after the end of a therapy session.
After treatment, your brain will be able to believe it and reduce the anxiety and stress that has accumulated in the body for years due to past injuries. At this stage, you will begin to understand how EMDH works, how it helps you learn something new about yourself and achieve inner peace.
6. You will be asked to pay attention to sensations in the body.
The therapist will ask you if there are any bodily sensations associated with the injury. Answer simply yes or no. If you answer yes, he may give you another session of bilateral stimulation to help you process these feelings.
7. You will end the session on a positive note.
The therapist will warn you that your brain may continue to process experiences even after the therapy session is over. Pay attention to new, unusual thoughts, memories, dreams, write them down in a diary, which you will show to the therapist at the next meeting.
If you have any questions, this is a good time to ask or discuss what happened during the session. If there is not enough time to fully process the experience, the therapist can symbolically lock the remaining discomfort in an imaginary container that will remain with him. This will help you to feel the joy of the work done and to leave the therapist’s office with a sense of peace and tranquility in your soul.
8. At the next session, you will be able to evaluate the progress and, if necessary, continue working.
At the next meeting, the therapist will offer to talk about your feelings in the past tense. You will also be asked to rate the intensity of the experience in the last session.
The process of therapy may seem like a set of some strange tricks.
When the intensity of the experiences subsides and does not increase again, this will mean that the therapy session was successful and helped to heal old spiritual wounds.
To you, as to many other victims of emotional trauma, the described process of therapy may seem like a set of some strange tricks. But EMDH really does help the brain heal old wounds. It allows you to process what is bothering you so you no longer have to resort to psychological defenses every time something triggers trauma memories.
If you have already tried traditional psychotherapy, but traumatic memories continue to haunt you, consider the feasibility of EMDH therapy. It can change the neural connections in your brain, giving you the strength to overcome old traumas and finally find the happiness you deserve!