Trauma Therapy & EMDR Therapy
What is Trauma?
EMDR holistically addresses mind, body, and soul by bringing up experiences that are stored emotionally in the body and reactivated in the present, and helps the body truly mend. -ROY KIESSLING
Our bodies are hardwired to react to dangerous situations one of five ways: fight, flight, freeze, submit, or attach. These instincts keep us safe by essentially shutting down our thinking process and moving us straight to take action that will preserve our lives. For example, if you are hiking and suddenly see a bear, you would not stop to think, “I wonder how long it has been since that bear has eaten?” You would either hold very still (freeze) and hope that the bear would not see you, run for your vehicle (flee), or if the bear attacked, you would (fight) for your life.
These instincts are good, but sometimes do not serve us well in the long term. Traumatic memories get stored in our bodies and our brains when not processed properly. When this happens, the body can get triggered by seemingly unrelated things.
Triggers can cause extreme physical responses that we do not understand and can’t control such as sweating, trembling, increased heartbeat and difficulty breathing. Your body believes that you are in danger and goes into high alert. Your brain stops some of its normal function, such as rational thought, to deal with the threat.
This becomes a problem when a person finds themselves in a situation that is not dangerous, but their body still reacts. For example, the sound of fireworks may trigger a soldier just returning from the war. He may find himself hyper-vigilant because in the war there literally was danger around every corner, but now he is having trouble adjusting to regular life.
EMDR – What is it?
EMDR, as with most therapy approaches, focuses on the individual's present concerns. EMDR's approach, however, considers past experiences that are being activated by present or future anticipated experiences.
Frequently, just talking about your problems isn't enough. EMDR's processing helps break through the blocks that are keeping you from living an adaptive, emotionally healthy life.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.
More than 30 positive controlled outcome studies have been done on EMDR therapy. Some of the studies show that 84%-90% of single-trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress disorder after only three 90-minute sessions. Another study, funded by the HMO Kaiser Permanente, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer were diagnosed with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. In another study, 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. There has been so much research on EMDR therapy that it is now recognized as an effective form of treatment for trauma and other disturbing experiences by organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization, and the Department of Defense. Given the worldwide recognition as an effective treatment of trauma, you can easily see how EMDR therapy would be effective in treating the “everyday” memories that are the reason people have low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, and all the myriad problems that bring them in for therapy. Over 100,000 clinicians throughout the world use the therapy. Millions of people have been treated successfully over the past 25 years.
EMDR therapy is an eight-phase treatment. Eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) are used during one part of the session. After the clinician has determined which memory to target first, he asks the client to hold different aspects of that event or thought in mind and to use his eyes to track the therapist’s hand as it moves back and forth across the client’s field of vision. As this happens, for reasons believed by a Harvard researcher to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, internal associations arise, and the clients begin to process the memory and disturbing feelings. In successful EMDR therapy, the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level. For instance, a rape victim shifts from feeling horror and self-disgust to holding the firm belief that, “I survived it and I am strong.” Unlike talk therapy, the insights clients gain in EMDR therapy result not so much from clinician interpretation, but from the client’s own accelerated intellectual and emotional processes. The net effect is that clients conclude EMDR therapy feeling empowered by the very experiences that once debased them. Their wounds have not just closed, they have transformed. As a natural outcome of the EMDR therapeutic process, the clients’ thoughts, feelings and behavior are all robust indicators of emotional health and resolution.
EMDR Source Info: HERE
What is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation and a variety of other challenging symptoms. Brainspotting is a simultaneous form of diagnosis and treatment, enhanced with Bilateral sound, which is deep, direct, and powerful yet focused and containing.
Brainspotting functions as a neurobiological tool to support the clinical healing relationship. There is no replacement for a mature, nurturing therapeutic presence and the ability to engage another suffering human in a safe and trusting relationship where they feel heard, accepted, and understood.
Brainspotting gives us a tool, within this clinical relationship, to neurobiologically locate, focus, process, and release experiences and symptoms that are typically out of reach of the conscious mind and its cognitive and language capacity.
Brainspotting works with the deep brain and the body through its direct access to the autonomic and limbic systems within the body’s central nervous system. Brainspotting is accordingly a physiological tool/treatment which has profound psychological, emotional, and physical consequences.
