There is a lot of buzz around the Acronym EMDR lately. While it has been piquing the interest of therapy communities for more than 30 years, this therapeutic modality has finally hit mainstream media in a major way. Starting with the show “Penguin” on HBO Max, to the scores of celebs like Tina Turner and Gwenyth Paltrow coming out to sing its’ praises, to even Prince Harry on the “Today Show’, suddenly it is everywhere. But what is it, and how does it work?
What EMDR is
EMDR stands for “eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. Francine Shapiro, the mother of EMDR found that if she used eye movements, tactile movements or sounds that went from side to side, it seemed to wipe out triggering memories for people such as veterans who have traumatic memories, or rape victims who have triggering memories of their experience. There isn’t a lot of agreement about why it works, but there are several theories. One theory is that the movement mimics what the eyes do during the REM cycle while sleeping, integrating the day’s events and placing them into long term memory during sleep. Some theories suggest the therapists’ questions orienting the client back to the present moment may break up the memory recall in some way. It is also suspected that possibly the working memory becomes taxed with the task of following the eye movements, integrating the memory as a by-product. At any rate, EMDR assists people in transforming triggering memories, and basically taking the sting out of them. We think that short-term and long-term memory work in tandem. The brain takes information learned today and integrates it with what has already been learned in a system Dr. Shapiro called the adaptive information processing model (AIP). When extreme emotionally negative events happen to us, this system seems to go off-line when we experience something that mimics even a small part of the original negative stimulus. Sometimes when triggered we go right back to the negative event, when we first learned the information, and become paralyzed in fear, instead of realizing, for example, that the stimulus is the air show instead of a combat memory. EMDR integrates the information into our adaptive processing memory bank so that we can know that we are safe, and there is no threat when there isn’t one.
Along with desensitizing triggering memories, we have found that traumatic memories that go unprocessed in our nervous systems lead us to formulate dysfunctional beliefs about ourselves, further impairing our functioning, and causing symptoms such as anxiety and depression. An example of this is if we get into a car accident and can no longer drive our car. We decide that driving is dangerous, despite the evidence that the over 50,000 times we got into our vehicles we did not get into a car accident. The reprocessing (the R) part of EMDR enables us to integrate a more realistic belief about ourselves that helps us heal those dysfunctional beliefs leading us to better functioning in our lives and the alleviation of troubling and debilitating symptoms
How can EMDR help you?
Of course, if you have been through an extremely traumatic experience, EMDR is a gold standard, evidence-based treatment that can help with much less time than other therapies. I have also used this treatment to treat sexual assault memories from years ago, when the participant did not report flashbacks or triggers, but was actively avoiding dating experiences because then they would be triggered. In fact, any time that someone has a desire to behave differently than they have managed to behave up until this point, EMDR is a great way to target the belief underneath the avoidance, or maladaptive behavior they are seeking to change or ameliorate. EMDR can be used for anxiety, depression, OCD, addictions, and phobias. Contact me for a consultation and let’s find a way to tackle that obstacle!
Becky Nagel, LCSW
(312)391-0273
Content provided by Women Belong member Becky Nagel
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