EMDR Therapy

How does EMDR help?

Studies have shown, including with war veterans, that EMDR can achieve the same benefits as normal talk therapy in a matter of a couple of sessions instead of months. Scientific research explores the effectiveness of jumping from the traumatic memory to a pleasant and current mind frame. This process is soothing and can ignite the part of the mind, allowing it to access the trauma. In other words, sometimes the body and mind hide traumatic memories, leaving us to treat symptoms, rather than the cause. For example, we may seek therapy for difficulty sleeping, when this problem may be related to an earlier trauma, for example, flashbacks following a robbery.

Let the past be the past, shouldn’t I move on?

Poet Laureate Joy Harjo was asked if she was in the right for creating beautiful poems out of atrocity as many of her poems describe forced removal, genocide, and rape. I think her answer responds to the same question many have about exploring traumatic memories in therapy. Are we retraumatizing ourselves by looking at trauma? The answer is, we may feel unsettled, and some of the same feelings may be rekindled which could be difficult, but it’s part of the healing process, and if you are supported by a caring and competent facilitator, you can do the work. As Jarjo rightly said, 

“If you think about a poetry of witness, you write to tell the truth. Why? Not to point fingers, necessarily, but what happens if it’s[the trauma] hidden? Then it comes in and it can destroy you. But if it’s out there, you can experience the story, and it’s set free (“Unlocking creativity, Masterclass*no promotion).”

That is a beautiful way to express how working through trauma, piecing together the narrative, and coming to acceptance can help us reach healing. There is a purpose people are hesitant to reach back into trauma. How could we drive again if we didn’t somehow push away the idea that we could crash at any given time? However, in when we have faced a trauma, we push away all the thoughts and feelings related to it, such as shame and thoughts such as, “I’m a failure,” the more we push the memory away, the more likely it will be to pop up when our body is reminded of the trauma. This could lead us to strike out, for example, when someone bumps up in the supermarket, we turn to fight or flight and we wonder, “how did that happen?” It’s important to remember that uncovering a traumatic memory, like stages of grief, moves in stages from a more protective stage to a more integrative and accepting stage. Upon integrating a trauma experience, we can honor our past without being emotionally taken over by what has happened to us.