Years ago, I lived in a quaint home built in the early 1900s. I hadn’t lived there for more than a year or two before the internet and cable services became unstable. Some days, they worked just fine, but on other days, they stuttered or the signal cut out altogether. Several service technicians came out and did some tinkering with the hardware and outside the house, but the issues only seemed to get worse. Eventually, a worker with a hard-hat and a toolbelt arrived. He’d need access to a common feature in these old houses: the gloomy, dank basement.
Hours later, he called me down to see what he’d discovered. Wires ran in all directions in and around the exposed ceiling. Some were clearly in poor shape, their rubber coating worn away and their twined wires rusted and broken. Splitters designed to separate or combine cables interrupted the flow in many places. The whole scene was one of disarray and confusion, left behind over years of trying to add modern conveniences to a house built long before they were even a thought.
“I know it looks like they didn’t know what they were doing, but in reality, these were probably the best solutions they could provide at the time,” the service technician explained. “Unfortunately, though, no one’s ever gone through and followed each line to make sure it’s going where it should, and wires are touching that shouldn’t be. It’s amazing you’ve had any service at all. Not to mention, there are better, easier solutions we can use now that will eliminate all this mess and confusion.”
Brains that experience trauma can seem a bit like my basement wiring. During a traumatic event, our brains make adjustments to ensure our physical and emotional survival. Over and over again, it makes these tweaks and reroutes its pathways. And if left alone, those changes can become permanent. For a while, we might think we’re fine. We got over it. We “toughed it out.” What we really did was developed unconscious coping mechanisms that crossed wires and split off our feelings and emotions again and again until we could, at least, get through. It was the best we could do at the time.
Eventually, though, we start to stutter. Anxiety kicks up, dark thoughts fester. Our reactions seem out of character or proportion. Our coping mechanisms seem to be failing, and we don’t know why. Something’s wrong, but it’s down there in that gloomy, dank basement, and we’d rather not dig too deeply in there. That’s where EMDR comes in.
What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of psychotherapy that uses external stimuli to help peel back the protective layers surrounding traumatic memories so they’re less painful to remember and they can be “reprocessed” faster. When we reprocess a memory, we review what is known about the experience and add in additional details and awareness that help us gain deeper understanding and lessen the emotional pain. However, these intense, traumatic moments may be too overwhelming to reprocess effectively without a therapeutic intervention like EMDR.
How does EMDR therapy work?
What makes EMDR different from other therapies is the use of “bilateral stimulation” to keep part of your brain busy and lessen the emotional impact while you describe traumatic experiences. While EMDR was originally developed by guiding the eyes in a side-to-side motion, further studies and research has shown other methods to be effective, including using vibrating “pulsers” in each hand or even tapping on alternate sides of the body in a steady rhythm, usually on the shoulders or knees.
Using bilateral stimulation while recalling painful experiences allows people to pay more attention to details, impressions, and surroundings that were previously overlooked. It can offer deeper understandings that make reprocessing the memory more effective. Think of the whole process a bit like a well-planned undercover mission. Special Agent Bilateral Stimulation saunters in the front door to act as a decoy, while you go in through the back entrance to avoid trauma detection and gather intel.
What should I expect during EMDR therapy?
In my practice, EMDR is used in conjunction with psychotherapy sessions. We’ll have an initial discussion to establish key details from your background and history to help us determine what a successful outcome for your therapy will look like. During an EMDR session, I’ll show you how to do bilateral stimulation, and then we’ll gently approach the memories we agreed upon. Our primary goal is to simply be observers and see what you notice and discover. I’ll be guiding you through the experience and monitoring your responses, and when it seems like the right time, I’ll help you withdraw from the memory. Then we’ll talk about what you experienced and what we learned.
If, at any time during the EMDR therapy, you become uncomfortable or overwhelmed, we’ll ease away from the cause of the distress and bring the session to a close. Then we’ll discuss what happened and how to navigate it in future sessions.