EMDR: The Gold Standard for Healing Trauma
EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a powerful therapeutic psychotherapy modality that helps people work through difficult traumatic memories, experiences or limiting beliefs in a rapid and effective manner.
One of the Best-Kept Secrets
EMDR is a heavily researched therapy with over twenty years of scientific validation. There are more controlled studies validating EMDR for the treatment of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) than any other treatment method. The American Psychiatric Association (2004), American Psychological Association, and the Department of Veterans Affairs and Defense (2004) have placed EMDR in the highest category of effectiveness. More than twenty controlled studies, and more than four hundred additional research studies, have found EMDR to be effective in decreasing or completely eliminating symptoms related to trauma and anxiety. EMDR is seriously one of the best-kept secrets in the psychotherapy and healing world.
What is Trauma?
Trauma can be defined as any experience that causes a person to develop a false belief about themselves or the world which keeps them from living to their full potential and causes suffering.
We define trauma into two types, Big “T" and small “t” traumas. A “Big T” trauma is a single incident trauma or life changing event. A “Big T,” would be a single or series of severely traumatic experiences (e.g. war, rape and major accidents).
We specialize in small “t” or complex traumas which are experiences that lessen a person’s self-confidence and affects a person’s ability to deal with life stressors. Small “t” traumas create a perpetual filter that narrow and limit one’s view of self and the world, impeding one from living to one’s full potential, and causing suffering.
Small “t” traumas are a series of traumatic or abusive events that occur over a period of time. Some examples of small “t” traumas include:
painful experiences from childhood
abusive relationships
sexual assault/abuse
prolonged chronic stress at home or at work
difficulty healing from betrayal or loss in relationship
bullying from peers
Most people have experienced small “t” traumas and probably do not think of these events as traumatic. However, these subtler and more complicated experiences can shape and influence how you are in the world, in a disempowered way. Small “t” traumas usually require more EMDR therapy sessions than Big “T” traumas.
Pathway to Transformation & Healing
Processing trauma allows for a powerful transformation, returning you to a natural balance or wholeness. Just as when you remove dirt from a wound, the body’s natural forces mobilizes to heal injury, likewise, EMDR clears blockages to the body-mind’s natural healing. When wholeness and balance are restored, we are able to experience peace, joy, wisdom, love and compassion.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
We use a special Attachment-Focused EMDR protocol which quickly stops the fight, flight and freeze response that gets activated when a person feels they are in trouble or danger. This is often an automatic response. The EMDR protocol allows you to feel a greater sense of calm.
We as humans are designed to heal, to recover and to flourish. EMDR therapy calms the amygdala in the brain that is our alarm center causing survival response of fight, flight and freeze. Many people who have experienced a life or death situation may feel depressed, afraid, lethargic, have shallow breathing, feel cold or paralyzed. They can feel immobile and may want to isolate themselves from others.
EMDR therapy for single incident trauma is fast and effective. Clients can get relief quickly and their symptoms can often be treated in fewer than 10 sessions. However, outcomes are individualized based on a person’s history and ability to tolerate the experience of EMDR.