What Is EMDR Therapy and How Does it Work?

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, also known as EMDR, is a mental health therapy method. The main use of this type of therapy is to treat conditions that occur due to a patient’s memories of trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also being successfully used to treat other conditions.

What is EMDR therapy and how does it work?

EMDR therapy is a treatment technique that involves the patient moving his or her eyes side to side, or taps their legs or shoulders, while he or she processes traumatic memories. It is a desensitization and reprocessing therapy with the end goal of assisting patients in reducing the amount of distress associated with traumatic memories.

Clinical trials used to investigate EMDR started in 1989, and as such, this method of treatment is relatively new compared to others. There have been dozens of clinical trials focusing on this technique. They agree that the treatment is effective and helps patients heal quicker than many other methods. As a general rule, EMDR is about 70% effective in reducing distress associated with traumatic memory.

Adolescents through to the elderly can and do benefit from EMDR as it assists with a wide range of mental health conditions. EMDR for children is also a specialization of some healthcare providers.

Why is EMDR popular with patients?

You may wonder what EMDR therapy is and why it is unlike other therapies. EMDR therapy does not involve the patient explaining the upsetting issue, but rather it works to reduce distressing emotions, and thereby disempower negative thoughts, and behaviors that result from those distressing feelings.

As it does this, the brain is allowed to continue its natural healing processes. Take note that a person’s mind and brain are different and should not be used interchangeably. Our brain is an organ of our body while our mind is a collection of thoughts, memories, beliefs, and experiences that make us all unique individuals.

Interestingly, the way our mind functions relies on how our brain is structured. This will involve complex networks of brain cells that send and receive messages to one another across many different areas of the brain.

This is particularly true with sections of the brain that are linked to memories and our five senses. The extremely effective manner in which our brain cells communicate with each other makes it easier for our senses of smell, sound, sight, feel, and taste to trigger strong memories.

How EMDR therapy works with your brain

The Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model is a way of understanding how our brain retains and recalls memories. In essence, the AIP model recognizes that your brain will store normal memories differently from how it stores memories of trauma.

In normal life, our brain stores memories in an ordered way and networks them so they connect with other memories. But when there is a disturbing or upsetting event, the networking associated with the memory is interrupted. Experts describe it as the brain going offline, and therefore a disconnect may occur between what you experience through your senses, and what your brain stores in your memory by using language.

Imagine you were going to clean out your garage. You would put shoes in one box, clothes in another, sporting goods in another, and so forth. Now, imagine your house is on fire. You would throw everything in one box. That seems to be what the brain does during a severely traumatic experience.

When they were researching EMDR, they did tomographic imaging on a patient and had him think of his target traumatic memory. One place in his brain lit up. After EMDR, the client reporting zero distress associated with the memory, three places in his brain lit up, as if his brain was able to put sights, sounds, and other elements of the experience where they should have been in the first place.

Memories stored during severe trauma may be stored in a way that does not allow them to heal. In these instances, experts will say that trauma resembles a wound that your brain has not allowed to heal. Because it has not healed, your brain has not recognized that the danger has passed.

More recent experiences can link with memories of trauma experienced earlier and repeatedly reinforce these, which then interferes with your senses and memories. As they remind your mind of the trauma, they also act as a mental injury. Resembling how our physical selves are sensitive to injuries, so our mental side will have an increased sensitivity to smells, sights, sounds, feelings, and tastes that we experienced during the traumatic event.

We can experience this trauma from things that come to mind clearly, as well as those we have suppressed. Just like how you may not remember the first time you burned your fingers on the flame of a candle, as your mind tries to suppress painful memories by not recalling them, some recall does leak through this mental defensive line.

Just as today, you may fear letting a match burn down too close to your fingers, so today past mental trauma can still cause symptoms, emotions, and negative behaviors.

How EMDR helps with triggers

The senses that were connected to a traumatic event will often trigger these unhealed memories. This can act as a gateway for the emotions connected to the traumatic event to return to your mind and body.

For this reason, post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, brings flashbacks of the event. This is understood as the improper nature of the stored and networked traumatic memories, which causes them to return in an uncontrollable manner that is often distorted and overpowering. Those people who suffer from flashbacks will often describe this feeling as re-experiencing or reliving the event as a moment from their past becomes realized in the present.

Experiencing EMDR will allow you to access your memories of trauma in particular ways. Combined with eye movements and guided instructions, experts now know that accessing these memories helps your body and mind to reprocess these traumatic events.

As you actively reprocess the memory, you proactively assist yourself to heal the mental injury caused by the memory. Once the therapy work is complete, patients are then able to remember what happened without the feeling of being overwhelmed by reliving it. Findings show that feelings associated with the event become far more manageable.

EMDR is used to treat various conditions

As EMDR is particularly effective in treating PTSD, it is most used for this purpose.

However, those providing mental healthcare report that it is useful in disorders related to anxiety, depression, eating, gender dysphoria, obsessive-compulsive disorder, personality issues, and trauma.

Dissociative disorders

This is experienced when the sufferer experiences a disconnection and lack of connection between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity. They will often escape reality in ways experts describe as involuntary and unhealthy as a reaction to traumatic events. Symptoms range from amnesia to alternate identities that help suppress these memories.

Gender dysphoria

The feeling as though your gender is different from the one assigned to you at birth.

Obsessive-compulsive disorders

Also known as OCD, these disorders commonly feature a pattern of undesired thoughts and obsessions that bring sufferers to partake in repetitive behaviors or compulsions. These all interfere with daily life and cause significant distress.

Anxiety

While everyone does feel anxious occasionally, this disorder concerns excessive, ongoing anxiety and worry that the sufferer finds hard to control and it interferes with their daily life.

Depression

This is a mood disorder that gives those suffering from it a persistent feeling of sadness and apathy. It is also known as major depressive disorder or clinical depression. Affecting how a person acts, thinks, and feels, depression leads to a range of emotional and physical problems. While often falsely interpreted as a weakness, it often requires long-term treatment.

Eating disorders

Conditions linked to persistent eating behaviors that compromise your health, emotions, and ability to function in various areas of life. Binge-eating, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa are the most common eating disorders.

Personality disorders

Marked by a fixed and detrimental manner of thinking and acting, sufferers of these types of disorders find it difficult to understand and relate to situations and people. Personality disorders have significant effects on relationships, social activities, work, and school.

Christian Counseling and EMDR Therapy

If you’re looking for additional help to better understand what EMDR therapy is, browse our online counselor directory or contact our office to schedule an appointment. We would be honored to walk with you on this journey.