What is EMDR?

EMDR stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. It is a highly successful therapeutic technique for treating trauma and PTSD.

Debbie offers EMDR to help remove trauma from the nervous system, allowing for re-balancing and deeper healing.

EMDR therapy can help you if you have

• experienced a traumatic event or a natural disaster
• witnessed a crime or serious accident
• have a history of abuse, emotional, physical or sexual
• struggled with anxiety, depression or panic disorders
• poor self-esteem or poor self-image
• nightmares or trouble sleeping
• explosive or irrational anger
• poor concentration or memory issues
• a fear of being alone
• phobias
• PTSD, Complex PTSD and Flashbacks

With the assistance of a trained therapist, EMDR can help clients replace their presenting issues with positive images, emotions, thoughts and outcomes.

How might someone benefit from EMDR?

EMDR is a procedure that helps to reduce the impact of past experiences that intrude on present-day life. When disturbing experiences happen, they are stored in the brain with all the sights, sounds, thoughts and feelings that accompany them.

Moreover, when a person is very upset, the brain seems to be unable to process the experience as it would normally. As a result, the negative thoughts and feelings surrounding the traumatic event remain trapped in the person’s nervous system until they’re addressed.

Since the brain cannot process these emotions, the experience and accompanying feelings are often suppressed from the person’s consciousness. The person’s distress lives on in their nervous system where it causes disturbances in their emotional functioning.

How does EMDR work?

Debbie works with the client, guiding them to revisit the traumatic incident or event. When the memory is brought to mind, the feelings are re-experienced in a new way.

EMDR makes it possible to gain the self-knowledge and insight that will enable the client to choose his or her actions, rather than feeling powerless over their re-actions.

EMDR provides two very important things:

1. It unlocks the negative memories and emotions stored in the nervous system
2. It helps the brain to successfully process the person’s experience.

This process can be complex if there are many experiences connected to the negative feelings. EMDR sessions continue until the traumatic memories and emotions are processed and the person finally feels relief and healing.

An important note: the number of sessions might differ greatly from person to person, since it is based on their own individual subjective experience.

What is the outcome of EMDR therapy?

EMDR is now the most researched treatment, to date, for PTSD. Numerous studies have shown that EMDR is very effective in helping people process emotionally painful and traumatic experiences. EMDR helps move the client quickly from emotional distress to peaceful resolution of the issues or events they are experiencing.

Since EMDR sessions work so quickly, processing even the most difficult memories can be achieved in a fraction of the time it would take with other therapeutic approaches.

How does EMDR compare to other types of therapy?

Other traditional trauma therapies often focus on memories from the unconscious mind, and then analyze their meaning to gain insight into the problem.

By contrast, although EMDR clients acquire valuable insights during therapy, the EMDR short-term approach expedites the process and goes right to the releasing stage. This helps to quickly stabilize and normalize the client’s nervous system.

The positive, long-term results of EMDR therapy affect all levels of the client’s quality of life: mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.