EMDR & Trauma
Trauma is a word that we hear a lot these days. It describes the psychological experience of being overwhelmed and unable to fully cope with or recover from a distressing event or events. This can be felt in your body too, as if your nervous system is stuck on ‘red alert.’ A trauma can be a one off event such as a car accident, or multiple ‘small T’ traumas such as relationship conflict or recurrent medical events.
Clinically, many people now understand the concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, but trauma can also present itself through anxiety/distress, numbness or disassociation, and when people start self-medicating in unhelpful ways. It can also become a chronic problem and might impact our personality development or relationships as in the case of Complex PTSD (CPTSD).
Our team work with trauma in a variety of ways, via EMDR as described below but also through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Narrative Exposure Therapy or longer term trauma informed psychotherapy. We believe that humans can be resilient and healthy when properly supported to be so, even in the face of quite profound challenges.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing)
EMDR is an effective evidence based therapeutic technique to address a range of psychological problems. It was developed initially to address PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder); however, it has wider applications in treating other types of trauma, phobias, anxiety disorders, addiction, and the impact of chronic health conditions.
EMDR is considered a gold standard in trauma treatment. Traumatic experiences can interfere with our usually adaptive information processing, meaning difficult memories can become isolated and stored in the part of the brain that is responsible for the ‘fight or flight’ response. This means that our unprocessed memory can show itself at any time (when triggered), sometimes in the form or ‘flashbacks’ (where you feel you’re back in the moment), but more commonly in the form of the bodily feelings or emotions we felt at the time. This experience can leave us feeling scared and out of control. Attempts to avoid any trigger of the difficult memories can serve to make things worse. If this distressing state goes on for a long time, we call it post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.
After establishing a safe therapeutic relationship, the EMDR therapist guides a client’s eyes in a bilateral movement to activate both right and left-brain hemispheres to process and desensitize traumatic memories and help process and reintegrate them into our everyday memory. When difficult memories are effectively reprocessed they become more bearable and cause less distress. Bilateral movement stimulates the brain’s adaptive capacity to heal itself. Other bilateral stimulation methods can also be used such as, tapping either side of the body, or listening to sounds alternately in each ear.
For further information about EMDR, please click on the following links:
All IPC EMDR trained clinicians receive ongoing specialist EMDR supervision from an external qualified supervisor. This means that your clinician is being supported to be the best practitioner they can be. It ensures you can feel confident that in their skilled and ethical practice.
