Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

We know more about the brain now than we ever have in human history. And that means we have more ways to help you.

When yucky, traumatic, or adverse childhood experiences happen, those memories don’t get processed the same way other memories do. It’s almost as if the brain is a big filing cabinet, but traumatic memories don’t get filed away properly. They get stuck and we continue to get triggered or reminded of them and we feel like we are right back in the crappy memory.

The good news is the brain has something called plasticity and can learn and change throughout our lifespan.

EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an incredibly powerful approach that can help access how the memory is stored in the brain currently and help the brain to reprocess and file it away properly. After this process, people often describe the memories as being “farther away,” or that “they just don’t have the same disturbing charge the way they used to.”

After working with EMDR therapy, clients feel more powerful, they stop hating themselves so much, they start to have better relationships and they start to feel like they are in control of their lives again.

You don’t have to let your past dictate your present or your future.
Positive change is possible. 

What is EMDR?

EMDR was developed by a psychologist named Francine Shapiro in the late 1980’s. The basic principle is that traumatic memories often get “stuck” in the brain in maladaptive ways. Traumatic memories are literally stored in isolation in the brain. The “eye movement” part of EMDR is having clients follow either the therapist’s hand or a light bar that guides the client’s eyes back and forth in bilateral movements. However, we usually use handheld pulsers that gently pulse in the client’s hands back and forth, right to left. Since the pandemic, many therapists have moved their practices online and use apps that have bilateral stimulation (BLS) like music alternating in each ear, or a light that moves across the screen. Clients can also use the butterfly hug or bilateral tapping on their legs to be just as effective for BLS. 

The theory is that just like when our eyes move back and forth in REM sleep, the bilateral stimulation helps the right and left brain to communicate with one another and helps the traumatic memory to process and be stored in more adaptive places in the brain. 

It’s not you, it’s your brain.

Your brain has been programmed to keep you in a state of stress. It has been trying to protect you. EMDR literally gets your brain unstuck and rewires how memories are stored.  

When we have had clients do brain scans before EMDR, we see an overactivation in the right side (the emotional) part of the brain as well as in the limbic system and amygdala (the brain’s panic button and one that sets the flight/fight/freeze/fawn into place). After EMDR, we see much more balance between the right and left side of the brain and much more activation in the frontal lobes. 

EMDR is extremely effective for “Big T” Traumas, like physical or sexual abuse, car accidents, acts of war, violent assaults, etc. If we are looking at more attachment-based, preverbal or generational traumas, EMDR can still be effective, it is just going to be a much more nonlinear process. Combining EMDR with ego state/parts work (like Internal Family Systems mentioned below) and bringing in a somatic (body) and attachment focus to the process is going to help deepen the work, and help address the more “little t” traumas. 

We can literally see a physiological change in the brain after EMDR therapy. In past research, activity in the limbic system which is the part of our brain that puts us in flight, fight or freeze, is overly active before EMDR.

After EMDR therapy, client’s brains are much more balanced and integrated. There is much more activity in the frontal lobes, which are in charge of attuned communication, emotion regulation, problem solving and impulse control. When trauma happens, it is overwhelming to the system and our brains cannot process it like other memories. Our brains lose our ability to distinguish between what is happening in the present moment and past challenges and therefore, memories, emotions and beliefs are stored in unhealthy ways.

The clinicians at AVOS specialize in helping you rewire your brain, body and belief systems.

Even if you don’t have conscious memories, you likely have uncomfortable symptoms and body sensations and that is how the memory is stored in the present.

EMDR therapy helps to access how these memories are stored in the present moment and helps to process them properly and file them away where they belong- in the past and in a healthier part of our brain.

Clients feel happier, more present and more powerful.

EMDR is backed by research in neuroscience. We can see on PET scans that all of the activity before EMDR is in the limbic system. After EMDR therapy, there is much more activity in the frontal lobes.