EMDR Therapy
What Is Eye Movement Desensitization And Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy?
You may have heard about EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy. EMDR is a highly structured, evidence-based form of psychotherapy that can be used to help reprocess and heal traumatic memories and experiences.
EMDR Therapy can be applied as a treatment method for mental health issues as diverse as complex PTSD, trauma, anxiety, depression, addiction, relationship issues, emotional abuse, bullying, and chronic pain, to name a few. EMDR uses rapid eye movement to help reprocess and better integrate these types of experiences, which can linger for years. Because of its wide array of applications and its proven effectiveness, EMDR has gained increased visibility and popularity in recent years as a viable mental health treatment option.
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EMDR Helps Reprocess Negative Or Traumatic Memories
Most of the mental health issues that EMDR Therapy can help treat are rooted in traumatic experiences of the past, specifically how the memories of those experiences have been processed and stored in the brain. EMDR allows you to reprocess these past experiences, so they stop negatively impacting you in the present.
Often, people avoid revisiting or even thinking about traumatic events or experiences at all costs. And this is so understandable! But it actually proves far more overwhelming and painful to let this trauma persist unhealed. Only by effectively reprocessing this trauma can we actively work toward a healthier, more balanced place in our lives.
But How Does EMDR Therapy Actually Work?
The EMDR process is structured and involves eight distinct stages, which act as a map for both you and your therapist throughout each session and across the duration of your treatment.
EMDR can help you get unstuck where you feel stuck. We first work to identify what is actually stuck, and how it relates to core beliefs about responsibility, safety, or control. We then employ bilateral eye stimulation, using visual, audio, or tactile stimuli, to help facilitate reprocessing these feelings in a more positive, integrated light—this is how you get unstuck.
The Unique, Versatile Benefits of EMDR Therapy
Because so many mental health issues are rooted in past trauma, pretty much anyone can benefit from the targeted application of EMDR. Challenges such as depression or addiction are often responses to trauma and so need to be approached from a trauma perspective.
EMDR is not about reexperiencing trauma but instead making sense of and coming to terms with it. Trauma is not what happened to you, but rather how you process what happened to you—whether in an adaptive or a maladaptive way. EMDR Therapy allows you to rewrite the narrative of what happened—and also what happens moving forward.
The Efficacy Of EMDR Is Becoming Only More Apparent
As EMDR Therapy has taken off in recent years, a host of evidence has begun to accumulate indicating its clinical value. No other therapeutic method is as widely used, widely researched, or shown to be as widely effective for the treatment of trauma as EMDR Therapy.
For example, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), “84 to 90 percent of single trauma victims no longer had PTSD after three 90-minute EMDR sessions (1). And as EMDR gets practiced more and more, further data emerges supporting these results.
(1)https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3951033/#:~:text=This%20is%20consistent%20with%202,three%2090%2Dminute%20EMDR%20sessions.
Our Personal And Professional Connection To EMDR
We are believers in the life-altering potential of EMDR Therapy on not only a professional level but a personal one as well. We practice EMDR in large part because we have experienced its game-changing impacts in the reprocessing of trauma firsthand in our own lives. We have also seen the positive impacts of EMDR on our clients again and again.
If you are feeling stuck, as we all do at various times in our lives, EMDR Therapy may be able to help you effectively get unstuck and move forward. As a promising treatment option for trauma, EMDR has helped improve our own lives as individuals and as a family (and continues to do so), and we love sharing the benefit of this modality with our clients.
You Can Reprocess, Heal, And Thrive With EMDR Therapy
If you are looking to reprocess and heal from your past and are interested in EMDR Therapy, please call 719-413-6879 or visit our contact page to get started.
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EMDR Therapy in
Colorado Springs, CO
In-Person & Online Therapy Sessions Available
7680 Goddard St Suite 120
Colorado Springs, CO 80920
719-413-6879