EMDR

“Our brains are wired for connection, but trauma rewires us for protection.”
– Ryan North

Wiring – and Rewiring

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was developed as a therapeutic approach to treat trauma and PTSD in the 1990s.

It was discovered that the movement of the eyes, which have a direct connection to deep, non-verbally accessed areas of the brain across the visual field, could help access the brain’s and body’s natural healing tendencies. Since its inception, therapists have found many other useful applications.

Harnessing Your Power

According to scientific theory, the eye movement of EMDR, like that of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, helps the brain process events of the previous day deep in the brain and sort them into the correct areas of the nervous system to facilitate learning and allow maximum function.

EMDR operates on the principle of dual attention – your brain and nervous system process the trauma while the eye movements facilitate simultaneously focusing attention in the here and now and accessing the brain’s amazing restorative abilities.

A well-trained therapist can harness and duplicate this phenomenon to release trapped energy from trauma and other unprocessed wounds and foster healing.

Setting the Stage

The reprocessing of trapped nervous energy through eye movements (and, sometimes, other bilateral brain activities) is merely one stage of the EMDR process.

If we hope to reprocess your trauma effectively, then before beginning, we must engage in an essential period of preparation and history-taking.

It’s important that helpful neuro resources are initially online to allow for effective reprocessing down the road.

Healing – without Hurting

You don’t have to relive or even fully verbalize the actual trauma in EMDR therapy. Often, all you need is an image or body sensation connected with the event to access its healing power.

You might also call it integrating the trauma trapped in the nervous system to the appropriate storage capacity.

This is what your nervous system wants, and my job Is to facilitate that process by setting up the situation to make it possible.

Tailoring Just for You

EMDR is a structural approach, but it’s not, by any means, cookie-cutter therapy.

Your particular traumas and goals are unique from anyone else’s, and its tools and concepts have countless applications.

My job is to assess the tools or aspects of therapy which best suit your needs while keeping in mind EMDR’s overall concepts, stages, and the goal of healing and renewal.