EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITISATION AND REPROCESSING (EMDR) THERAPY
In addition to its use for the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, EMDR has been successfully used to treat:
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Anxiety - Panic attacks - Depression - Stress - Phobias - Sleep problems - Complicated grief - Addictions - Chronic pain - Phantom limb pain
- Self-esteem and performance anxiety
- Bipolar - Eating Disorder - Trauma - Anger issues - Relationship issues - OCD
How Trauma is experienced in present day
Trauma can come in many forms. When we think of trauma, generally we associate it with what is shown through different media outlets (e.g. the car accident, the war veteran or the sexual abuse victim). However, trauma can be adverse childhood experiences, that we as adults, don't view as a "big deal" (e.g. not getting an A on the math test). Additionally, trauma does not necessarily need to be experienced directly for it to effect us, witnessing someone else going through trauma or working with traumatised people constantly can also impact our minds. Our brains are designed to keep us safe and it does this by protecting us from replaying certain adverse experiences in our day-to-day through avoidant/suppressing behaviours (e.g. dating emotionally unavailable people, alcohol abuse, avoiding vulnerability).
Anatomy of Trauma
Most of the time your body routinely manages new information and experiences without you being aware of it. However, when something out of the ordinary occurs and you are traumatised by an overwhelming event (e.g. a car accident) or by being repeatedly subjected to distress (e.g. childhood neglect), your natural coping mechanism can become overloaded. This overloading can result in disturbing experiences remaining frozen in your brain or being "unprocessed". Such unprocessed memories and feelings are stored in the limbic system of your brain in a "raw" and emotional form, rather than in a verbal “story” mode. This limbic system maintains traumatic memories in an isolated memory network that is associated with emotions and physical sensations, and which are disconnected from the brain’s cortex where we use language to store memories. The limbic system’s traumatic memories can be continually triggered when you experience events similar to the difficult experiences you have been through. Often the memory itself is long forgotten, but the painful feelings such as anxiety, panic, anger or despair are continually triggered in the present. Your ability to live in the present and learn from new experiences can therefore become inhibited.
Window of Tolerance
When we are within our Window of Tolerance we are essentially in the optimal zone, our nervous systems (Sympathetic and Parasympathetic) are in a state of balance, which allows for adaptive responses to stress (i.e., Calm Activation) and a capacity for emotional regulation to balance this stress (i.e., Calm Deactivation). However, the accumulation of Stress and/or feeling a state of threat can shrink our Window of Tolerance. Once pushed outside our Window of Tolerance, it can become very difficult to take in new information. This is because these states of Hyper-arousal and Hypo-arousal are ancient physiological survival mechanisms that are shared across species throughout the entire animal kingdom.
Structural Dissociation
Fractured Parts of Personality
It is the nature of the mind to be subdivided into an indeterminate number of sub-personalities or parts. We describe the division of personality as dissociative parts of the personality. Each part together constitute one whole, they are self-conscious, are generally complex and all have at least a rudimentary sense of self. Everyone has a Self or Adult part (the whole), and the Self/Adult can and should lead the individual's internal system. Parts are categorised into two action systems, the system that supports individuals to adapt and function to daily life and the system that defends from major threat and recuperation. The non-extreme intention of each part is something positive for the individual, generally to protect and adapt. As we develop, our parts develop and form a complex system of interactions among themselves. When the system is reorganized, parts can change rapidly. Changes in the internal system will affect changes in the external system and vice versa.
EMDR Treatment
The mind can often heal itself naturally, in the same way as the body does. Much of this natural coping mechanism occurs during sleep, particularly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Francine Shapiro developed Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) in 1987, utilising this natural process in order to successfully treat Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Since then, EMDR has been used to effectively treat a wide range of mental health problems.
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EMDR Sessions can feel like you have one foot in the trauma memory and the other foot in the therapy room with your therapist. We can look at the experience with the knowledge and wisdom gained from having the memory in the past and are able to reprocess the experience so that it does not cause emotional distress or activation in the present moment.
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Due to the nature of the therapy, your therapist will go through a thorough assessment and screening process, you may also spend a lot of time in the preparation phase of EMDR, developing our internal resources to attend to our past.
EMDR Sessions
EMDR utilises the natural healing ability of your body. After a thorough assessment, you will be asked specific questions about a particular disturbing memory. Eye movements, similar to those during REM sleep, will be recreated simply by asking you to watch the therapist's finger moving backwards and forwards across your visual field. Sometimes, a bar of moving lights or headphones is used instead. The eye movements will last for a short while and then stop. You will then be asked to report back on the experiences you have had during each of these sets of eye movements. Experiences during a session may include changes in thoughts, images and feelings.
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With repeated sets of eye movements, the memory tends to change in such a way that it loses its painful intensity and simply becomes a neutral memory of an event in the past. Other associated memories may also heal at the same time. This linking of related memories can lead to a dramatic and rapid improvement in many aspects of your life.
Book your EMDR Session
Andrew is a fully qualified EMDR therapist who has been trained by the EMDR Institute of Australia. The EMDR Institute is the direct training from Francine Shapiro's standard protocol and the trainers are directly trained and guided by the original EMDR founders.
Andrew is a member of EMDRAA and is currently working towards his EMDRAA accreditation and receives professional supervision from EMDR Institute consultants.
Andrew has received the following training in EMDR:
Weekend one basic training - EMDR Institute
Weekend two basic training - EMDR Institute
EMDR Therapy Addiction specific workshop
Structural Dissociation training - EMDR Institute
