| A Place Called 'There' Counseling Autumn Austin MA, LPC, BCETS, NCC, CGP, LCAS 1135 Four Lakes Dr. Suite A Matthews, NC 28105 704-651-0668 Specializing in Helping People who have been Hurt. |
| Evening Appointments Available. Most Insurance Companies Accepted. Sliding Scales Available Email Questions or Comments to: aaustin@aplacecalledthere.com |
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a powerful and relatively new form of psychotherapy that is challenging everything we believe or have assumed about emotions and the nature of change. Where once it was accepted that psychotherapy often took years, depending on the nature of the problem (and even then outcomes were less than wonderful), therapists and clients are finding that problems that were resistant to years of psychotherapy are being resolved in a very short amount of time. Sometimes, within a few sessions. How EMDR Might Work Exactly how EMDR works is not really known. We do know from memory and brain research that painful or traumatic experiences are stored in a different part of the brain than pleasant or neutral ones. Normally, if we're troubled by something we think about it, talk about it, perhaps dream about it and eventually we are able to come to some sort of adaptive resolution. (We find a way to come to terms with it in a healthy way, enabling us to put it behind us.) Something happens that interrupts this process when we experience a trauma or very painful event. Instead, the traumatic material gets "stuck" in the brain and remains in its original form, with the same thoughts, feelings, bodily sensation, smells and sounds. It's as though it is sealed off from the healthy, functioning brain. That's why it's not uncommon for a person who's had years of traditional talk therapy to find that they still hurt and haven't changed as much as they had hoped. This is because the dysfunctionally stored material still has not been processed. What researchers think is that EMDR in some way is able to "nudge" that material so that it neurologically reconnects with the healthy brain and then is reprocessed and integrated at an accelerated speed. The most popular theory is that when the eyes move back and forth it creates brain activity similar to that which occurs during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. It's during this REM phase (when we dream) that we resolve conflicts, process information and consolidate learning and memory. More simply put, information processing takes place. By creating similar brain activity, while thinking about the painful event, it appears that EMDR is able to help the brain finally process the "stuck" material, enabling the person to arrive at an adaptive resolution. The painful event or trauma becomes an unfortunate memory but is no longer produces the emotional pain that it did before. Most long term problems are not cured in three sessions, however treatment is generally much shorter than traditional talk therapies, which is an advantage in the age of managed care. EMDR has changed the face of psychotherapy and continues to do so. As scientists learn more about the brain, using new and sophisticated methods such as brain imaging, we may gain a deeper understanding of how the brain and EMDR works. |
| A New Psychotherapy Tool EMDR |
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| "My life might need some work, but I myself, the worker on my life, am forever immaculately perfect." |