EMDR Therapy

EMDR is a therapy that can help us cope better with the impact of emotionally distressing and traumatic events.  Such events arise from life experiences including PTSD, abuse, grief, phobias, depression and anxiety related disorders. 

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing and is a therapy that can reconnect to natural healing processes within the brain.

The brain is a complex and highly capable piece of kit that will always do its best to cope with traumatic events by attempting to process information in helpful ways.  Sometimes with best efforts the brain becomes blocked and an imbalance persists from the impact of a disturbing event.  This blockage or imbalance can have a persistently debilitating effect on life by the inability to ‘heal’ the blockage and enable recovery. 

In EMDR a key feature is the use of ’bilateral stimulation’ usually eye movements and sometimes tactile or auditory stimulation.  Research has demonstrated that the use of bilateral stimulation speeds up the reprocessing of emotional or traumatic material and at the same time helps with feelings of safety when making contact with such material. Additionally, EMDR reduces the vividness of associated traumatic and emotional imagery.

This therapy has another helpful feature in that the person seeking treatment does not have to discuss any of their disturbing memories in detail, we can work together verbally or non-verbally in equally effective ways.

The aim of EMDR is to be able to observe the original traumatic experience in new ways without emotional distress whilst also embedding new and more helpful beliefs and resources. 

EMDR therapy enables the road to recovery to start, blockages to heal and helps us move towards a more balanced life that optimises our health and wellbeing.

If you are interested in finding out more about how EMDR Therapy might help you, just get in touch.