What is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a form of therapy that helps people heal from trauma or other distressing life experiences. It is also very effective in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression.
About EMDR Therapy
“Our brains have a natural way to recover from traumatic memories and events. When distress from a disturbing event remains, the upsetting images, thoughts, and emotions may create feelings of overwhelm, of being back in the moment, or being “frozen” in time. EMDR Therapy helps the brain process these memories and allows normal healing to resume. The experience is still remembered, but the fight, flight or freeze response from the original event is resolved.”
(EMDR International Association)
The fight, flight and freeze responses are emotional responses to a terrible event. Our bodies naturally go into these responses when danger arises. However, according to Peter Levine, “our bodies can naturally release trauma and heal on its own. However, we often interfere with our body’s wisdom of releasing traumatic events by avoiding them, trying to not think about them, in essence stifling that recovery response when we lack the resources to work through the intensity of emotions that come with a traumatic event.” With an EMDR trained therapist, during therapy, you can gain the resources needed and release traumatic events stored in the body; helping you to heal and move forward.
