Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), is a form of mind-body energy work used most extensively for trauma and abuse recovery, but has also been quite successful for other issues such as anxiety, depression, chronic pain, addiction, and low self-esteem/self-confidence.
Originally developed by Francine Shapiro, a clinical researcher, after noting that, following a walk she’d taken while thinking of her painful relationship with her father, she felt better. Being a clinical researcher, Shapiro was curious as to why this should be and dedicated the next several decades of her life researching the targeted effects of bilateral stimulation on resolving past traumas. Walking, by the way, is a mild form of bilateral stimulation. Shapiro found, through her research, however, that side to side eye movements, audial tones, and alternate vibrations felt on our hands or feet were much more effective, and more easily adapted to the therapeutic session.
When we experience something that is traumatic to us—in our own subjective processing—the memory of that event is stored in another part of the brain, away from the rest our own memories. Typically, memories are stored in the pre-frontal cortex of our brain; the part of our brain that also analyzes, is responsible for higher cognitive functioning, judgment, and impulse control.
Traumatic memories, on the other hand, are stored in the amydala, or “reptile brain,” along with the limbic system, or “emotion central.” This is not a place for judgment, analytical reason, or impulse control. This is why, when triggered by a reminder of a traumatic memory, we can feel “hijacked” by our brains into behaving irrationally—ration cannot, at that moment, be accessed.
The goal of EMDR therapy is to reprocess these distressing memories, by applying bilateral stimuli in the present, while recalling the traumatic event. The juxtaposition of the two creates, in essence, a “defrag” program” for your brain, refiling the memories where they properly belong, and thereby reducing lingering effects and actually transforming, in the process, negative self-beliefs related to the event to positive, affirming self-beliefs. It is quite possible, and the goal of every EMDR session, to reduce one’s distress about a particular memory to an absolute zero.
We, at OptimalLife Wellness Center, are pleased and excited to be able to offer this powerful and effective tool for trauma recovery for both our English and Spanish speaking clients.