EMDR therapy is a type of therapy that has gained a great deal of recognition in the field of psychology in the more recent past. I have received training in this type of therapy and have been successfully utilizing its techniques with clients. I now get people calling and asking specifically for treatment with EMDR Therapy, but many people do not know much about it yet.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for a variety of emotional difficulties and self-esteem issues with trauma-related origins. EMDR is a set of standardized protocols that lead the client to “reprocess” past trauma and negative messages that cause distress in the client’s life. It accelerates treatment for a variety of difficulties such as PTSD, anxiety disorders, and depression that are related to past events and present-day distress. Disturbing or intrusive feelings or thoughts begin to lose power as they become relegated to the past. EMDR therapy incorporates elements from many different treatment approaches, such as cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic theories. To date, EMDR therapy has helped millions of people of all ages relieve many types of psychological stress.
The amount of time the complete treatment will take depends upon the history of the client.
Complete treatment of the targets involves a three pronged protocol (1-past memories, 2-present disturbance, 3-future actions), and are needed to alleviate the symptoms and address the complete clinical picture. The goal of EMDR therapy is to reprocess completely the experiences that are causing problems, and to include new ones that are needed for full health. “Reprocessing” does not necessarily mean talking about it. “Reprocessing” means setting up a learning state that will allow experiences that are causing problems to be processed and stored appropriately in your brain. That means that what is useful to you from an experience will be learned and stored with appropriate emotions in your brain, and then it will be able to guide you in positive ways in the future. The inappropriate emotions, beliefs, and body sensations will be discarded. Negative emotions, feelings, and behaviors are generally caused by unresolved earlier experiences that are pushing you in the wrong directions. The goal of EMDR therapy is to leave you with the emotions, understanding, and perspectives that will lead to healthy and useful behaviors and interactions.
For more information, go to www.emdr.com or www.emdria.com.