Trauma Therapy and EMDR

Written By Sarah Collinsworth

What is EMDR Therapy and how is it different?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy

Trauma can have a lasting impression on your life. Trauma can be one event that has dramatically impacted your life, or it can be multiple incidents of trauma from childhood on up (complex trauma). The good news is that our brains have a natural way to recover and EMDR therapy will help. EMDR is a specific type of therapy for trauma.

We all have responses to stress. We will naturally fight, flight or freeze. Events that are disturbing and cause distress can get “frozen in time” in our brains. We make decisions based on our past experiences and EMDR is a way to reprocess and resolve traumatic memories and allow healing to start. This is not talk therapy. It does not involved in-depth stories or reliving trauma. EMDR does not focus on changing feelings or behavior that can come from trauma. Rather, this therapy will allow the brain to heal.

Watch this short video where Dr. Nadine Burke Harris discusses how adverse childhood experiences (trauma) can have a lasting impact on overall health.

EMDR therapy is a highly effective therapy proven to help people recover from trauma and other distressing life experiences, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders. EMDR is supposed/used by the American Psychiatric Association, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the World Health Organization as an effective treatment. EMDR can be done through telehealth just as effectively as in person sessions.

Who can benefit from EMDR therapy?

EMDR therapy helps children and adults of all ages. Therapists use EMDR therapy to address a wide range of challenges:

  • Anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias

  • Chronic Illness and medical issues

  • Depression and bipolar disorders

  • Dissociative disorders

  • Eating disorders

  • Grief and loss

  • Pain

  • Performance anxiety

  • Personality disorders

  • PTSD and other trauma and stress-related issues

  • Sexual assault

  • Substance abuse and addiction

To learn more about EMDR, please give this link: https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/

Sarah Collinsworth
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