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. The EMDR approach states how you think and feel about yourself is influenced by your past painful experiences. For example, do you ever feel unloveable, although you know you are loved? With EMDR, you can free yourself of the emotional pain & beliefs that are keeping you from living an emotionally healthy life.
The body does not know the difference between the present and the past, so if a reminder of a painful event triggers you, your brain and body react as if it is happening all over again. EMDR helps you reprocess those painful events to help you move past them so that you can live a life without the past influencing your present.
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to change how the painful event is stored in your brain. It helps to rewire your brain network to more adaptive beliefs about yourself and others. Once the memory is fully reprocessed, you can think about the painful event without experiencing intense emotional pain.
According to EMDR International Association, “Our brains have a natural way of recovering from traumatic memories and events. When distress from a disturbing event remains, the disturbing images, thoughts, and emotions may create feelings of overwhelm, of being back in that moment, or of 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 actual event’s fight, flight or freeze response is resolved.”
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