CO-CREATE
COUNSELLING
EMDR Therapy
What is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR Therapy stands for Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing. Originally, the processing stage used eye movements from right to left, however, any bilateral stimulation (BLS) from right to left has been proven to work. For example, tapping right, then left knee and repeat. The back and forth movements stimulate the right , then the left side, helping to stimulate the brain and nervous system to help processing and to aid in calming. The goal of EMDR is to help your system in processing unsettling or traumatic events, situations, or relationships, and then installing the belief about yourself or world that you would like to believe. Usually, after negative experiences you may believe negative concepts about yourself or world. As well, trauma can manifest and almost become stuck in the body, leading to symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, fatigue, anxiety, numbness, dissociation, lack of motivation, etc. EMDR can alleviate and even completely stop these types of ailments.
What's the process?
EMDR has 8 Phases:
1) History-Taking: Getting to know you and your history, as well, building safety in the counselling space.
2) Preparation: Introducing EMDR, BLS and practicing resources, which are tools to calm and regulate the system. We will use these in processing if your system shuts down, or is heightened.
3)Assessment: This involves the EMDR sheet and helps to determine the target for processing.
4)Desensitization: This is the processing phase in which the target has been determined, as well, we determine your negative cognition (belief) an positive cognition (the belief you want to think) and you do rounds of BLS while thinking about target, negative cognition, and feelings and sensations. After a round (about 24-30 passes, one pass is left then right), I will say "Anything come up?" You say what came up, we do not discuss this much, we want you to process what is happening with little interference. I will say, "Well go with that." And we do another round and repeat until it feels complete.
5)Installation: The goal is to link the original memory with the positive cognition (belief you want to think or feel). We use a faster paced BLS and continue to do rounds until the belief feels quite true.
6)Body Scan: You hold the original memory, and scan the body to notice anything tense or uncomfortable.
7) Closure: Discuss and debrief the session. You will also be told that processing continues to happen, so you may have strange dreams, or feel tired.
8)Re-evaluation: Next session I will ask: "Did anything else come up?" We can discuss this, and sometimes it will lead into the next target for the desensitization phase.
What can I expect?
How many sessions would I need?