When you open your eyes in the morning, you begin to register with your eyes what surrounds you. And so throughout the day. You look at dozens of places, objects and human faces. Some of them will become embedded in your memory – some for a shorter period of time and others for a longer period. But sight is used for more than just seeing what’s going on around you. After all, it turns out that the right eye movements help treat traumas, phobias and even eating disorders.
Are you curious how this is possible? How can the sense of sight be used in therapy? Does making certain eye movements really provide relief? And is it a way to alleviate depression, anxiety and still recurring unpleasant memories?
EMDR therapy – what is it?
At the very beginning it will be useful to develop the mysterious-sounding abbreviation EMDR. The full name is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. In Polish, we can call this type of interventions as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. EMDR therapy is still little known in Poland and is only slowly gaining popularity. However, it has been used worldwide for more than three decades.
EMDR helps in dealing with difficult memories or traumatic experiences. As the name suggests, the sense of sight plays an important therapeutic role here. With its help, bilateral brain stimulation (about which more in a moment) is performed. This does not mean, however, that there will be a lack of “traditional” conversation, familiar to us from psychotherapy.
EMDR therapy for whom?
The roots of the therapy date back to 1987, which is when American psychologist Francine Shapiro pioneered a whole new type of therapy aimed at alleviating the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. However, it turned out that its application is much broader.
The EMDR method can be helpful in treatment:
- post-traumatic stress disorder,
- anxiety disorders and phobias,
- mood disorders,
- eating disorders, e.g. compulsive overeating
- depressive disorders,
- personality disorders,
- addictions to psychoactive substances e.g. marijuana.
What are the goals of EMDR therapy?
The most important goals of EMDR therapy are:
- Desensitizing memories and processing them appropriately.
- Changing cognitive perspective
- Experiencing the trauma in a safe and controlled manner.
- Coming to terms with a difficult experience or experiences.
EMDR therapy – what does it involve?
If you’ve never heard of EMDR before, you may wonder what it’s like. Since the therapy involves the use of vision and some kind of “stimulation,” the first associations often include a tangle of cables hooked up to large machines or electrodes connected to the head. But fortunately, these are just imaginings. So what does it all really look like?
The therapist asks you to focus your attention on his hands and follow the moving fingers with your eyes. Additional stimuli – tactile or auditory – may also be used in the course. The basis, however, is to wander with the eyes in the direction determined by the psychologist’s hand.
How will eye movement make us feel better?
Each of us can put out our hand at any time and start trailing our finger. Nor will it be difficult to follow it with our eyes. But does this mean that we can cure ourselves with such a “home version of EMDR”?
If it were so simple, probably no one would decide to start professional EMDR therapy. After all, it’s not a matter of making any eye movements or doing them at any time. Everything has to be very well coordinated: specific eye movements are accompanied by a conversation in which difficult experiences come to the fore.
We also return to the bilateral brain stimulation mentioned earlier. In quite a nutshell, we can say that this is a way to create new neuronal connections. These connections will make it easier for our brains to “bury difficult memories and negative beliefs into the right drawers.”
Is EMDR a clash with trauma? Is it traumatic in nature?
Re-living painful experiences, talking about a phobia or revisiting moments of horror – this creates an instinctive fear in us. And when we imagine that this is superimposed by additional brain stimulation, won’t the session be our worst nightmare? Won’t we panic?
Such fears are perfectly understandable – especially if we have never encountered EMDR therapy before. It seems quite unusual and potentially threatening to us. However, it is worth remembering that fears are just fears.
During the session, a psychologist is beside us all the time. He collects feedback on how we feel. He often uses a special scale for this, with which he monitors our reactions and progress in therapy.
EMDR therapy – trauma experienced under controlled conditions
Imagine that you are panically afraid of dogs. Anxiety is triggered in you even hearing barking somewhere far outside your window.
What if your therapist instructed you in the very first minute of your session to tell the story of how you were bitten by a wandering wild dog ten years ago? What more if he then turned on the sound of barking from the speakers, and told you to look in different directions with your eyes?
Either you would have immediately fled the office, or it would have been the only session you attended.
EMDR therapy is not intended to make you panic (or worse, contribute to further traumas). As with classical psychotherapy, it’s about providing a comfortable and safe atmosphere.
The office is a refuge where we discuss very difficult topics, but we do it slowly. Everything that happens there occurs gradually and is tailored to our abilities. We don’t have to fear that the therapist will throw us into deep water without warning. It’s also good to mention that we will learn tension-reducing techniques before confronting the trauma.
Therapy plan. What does EMDR therapy look like?
At this point it is also worth outlining the EMDR therapy plan. It usually consists of eight phases.
- identifying and developing a treatment goal,
- learning to relax (very important especially with major traumas),
- stimulation and reworking phase,
- working with the negative belief,
- instilling a positive belief,
- processing between sessions,
- evaluation of progress and changes,
- return to processing (if still needed).
EMDR therapy – how long does it take?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy can vary in duration depending on the individual patient’s needs and the nature of the problems he or she is facing. In general, EMDR therapy is often shorter than traditional forms of therapy, but the exact duration can vary.
A typical session of EMDR therapy lasts about 60-90 minutes, and a full course of therapy can involve several to a dozen sessions, depending on the complexity of the problem, the depth of the trauma and the patient’s individual response. Some people may notice improvement after a few sessions, while others may need more time.
Can EMDR therapy be part of psychotherapy?
EMDR therapy can be used in two ways:
– as a stand-alone therapeutic method,
– as an element of classical psychotherapy.
EMDR therapy – for whom?
EMDR can be used for a wide variety of patients – both adults and children. The therapy can be undertaken by healthy people as well as sick people – including cancer patients and people with neurodegenerative diseases.
Contraindications to EMDR, however, are:
– abuse of psychoactive drugs,
– use of psychotropic drugs,
– susceptibility to syncope,
– epilepsy.
EMDR therapy – opinions
The EMDR method is still not yet common in Poland. In recent years, however, more and more places offering this type of therapy have been established. People who choose to use the method often emphasize that they like the narrowing of the field of problems. While some types of therapy mean looking at an almost infinite number of issues, here there is a focus on a single, specific event.
You also hear good things about EMDR because it brings noticeable changes on many levels:
– somatic symptoms,
– thought patterns,
– beliefs,
– emotions.
EMDR – trauma treatment
What could be trauma for us?
When describing the EMDR technique, the word “trauma” is often used. But what is it really, and does it always have to be associated with the very worst associations?
Trauma is a strong word. We may at first associate it only with rape victims, refugees fleeing war or people experiencing a natural disaster. In psychology, however, trauma can be understood much more broadly. It’s not just events that bring an immediate threat to our lives. It is also any trauma (conflicts, frustrations, crises) that hits us with a powerful load of negative emotions.
Psychological trauma can cause, among other things:
- experience of violence (both physical and psychological),
- abandonment by a caregiver in childhood,
- facing a chronic illness,
- being a witness to an assault,
- experience of war,
- being bitten by a dog,
- death of a loved one,
- experiencing an accident,
- sudden loss of a job,
- divorce,
- rape.
A traumatic experience brings with it shock, difficult emotions and a change in daily life. However, not everyone experiences trauma in the same way – it all depends on our personality, previous experiences and factors related to the traumatic situation itself.
Three possible sequelae of trauma are mentioned:
- survival – which involves us functioning worse than before the trauma,
- recovery – we manage to return to the state of functioning that was typical for us before the trauma,
- growth and development – we begin to function better than we did before the trauma.
Trauma ≠ end
Experiencing trauma is an extremely difficult event and triggers an avalanche of unpleasant emotions. At first, we may feel tremendous injustice because we were affected by something so painful and unexpected. And we were not ready to face such a tragedy.
But trauma doesn’t have to mean the end at all. Although it irrevocably changed our lives, it did not cancel them. And although at first we think it is impossible to return to a normal life, it is not worth giving up. It will be difficult for us. We will have moments of doubt. But putting in the effort to work through painful events will pay off. If you are struggling with the experience of trauma, make an appointment – online psychotherapy.
Trauma bonding vs. EMDR Therapy
Traumatic events can be not only events, but also relationships. When we have lived under the same roof for many years with an abusive parent or partner who constantly manipulates and blackmails us emotionally, it is not easy for us to cut ourselves off from his toxic influence.
A relationship forms between the victim and the abuser that is very hard to break. Even when we want to forget the wrongs that happened to us, something pulls us back. The traumatic attachment does not allow us to leave. And when we do, we are more than likely to return – completely as if we are unable to function under different conditions.
It is the trauma of the bond that answers the question “why can’t she leave?”. Because even when we get out of this unhealthy relationship, it is still an open wound for us. It causes pain and doesn’t let us forget. EMDRtrauma therapy can help here to soothe the emotions and get away from constantly returning thoughts to the toxic partner.
EMDR and the mother-child relationship
Most mothers feel a bond with their child. It is something that occurs in them quite naturally. For some, however, neither during pregnancy (read: stress in pregnancy) nor immediately after delivery do any warm feelings appear.
This is a very difficult experience for a woman. She leaves the hospital and comes home with the baby, but nothing looks as it should. She expected to immediately feel boundless love for the baby. Meanwhile, instead of attachment and care, there is a strange emptiness.
A properly built bond includes giving the newborn attention, showing empathy and caring enough to see and meet its needs. But what if we simply don’t experience such a thing? What if there is indifference in us, and we perform duties around the baby “on autopilot”?
What is the cause of such a state?
Then we are talking about abnormalities related to the formation of bonds (read: attachment styles) with the child. We can look for their sources in the woman’s mental state. It is hard for her to establish a relationship when she faces depression and lowered mood.
It’s also worth considering how the pregnancy went: difficult events that took place during that time, or a complicated and prolonged labor are other potential reasons for the lack of bonding with the child.
Using therapy to improve mother-child bonding
However, we can improve the compromised bond with the help of EMDR. During therapy, the mother focuses on her pregnancy experiences and looks for those that cause her tension. These are the ones that make it difficult for her to enjoy motherhood now.
By implementing the EMDR technique, these experiences can be processed and discomfort can be released. They will be “transported” to the past (which is where they belong). In turn, the mother will be able to focus on the here and now, and return to caring for her child with a calm head.
EMDR therapy and depression
The result of a dramatic experience can be depression. It occurs in response to a painful experience (for example, remaining in a violent relationship, the loss of a loved one or the diagnosis of a terminal illness). We block our emotions inside and isolate ourselves from the world. Locked inside ourselves, feeling increasing stress and a sense of injustice, we notice at some point that nothing can make us happy anymore.
Re-processing the trauma experienced can significantly reduce tension and regulate emotions. Coming to terms with unpleasant situations allows us to redirect our attention to other aspects of our lives and see a spark of hope for a better future. And this spark can give us extra strength to overcome depression.
EMDR method – leave the past in the past
When life brings us something unexpected and painful, we try to cope with it somehow. But when events keep recurring in our thoughts and dreams and refuse to let us rest, we need to take decisive steps.
If we don’t do anything, every day that follows will be harder and harder for us. We will continue to face a vicious circle of unpleasant feelings and growing anxiety.
This is when it’s time to go to a psychologist. Even if we don’t know how to put our thoughts into words. And even if at first we find it hard to talk about our past. In time, we will manage to break through – and then we will get to the heart of what ails us. Later, in turn, we will work on it.
Remember, EMDR trauma therapy seeks to:
– process unpleasant memories,
– accept that they are part of our experience,
– to free ourselves from constantly revisiting the most difficult moments of the past.
Whether your problem is a phobia, PTSD post-traumatic reaction symptoms, or some other type of disorder, you want to put those experiences behind you. The EMDR method will help you achieve this – and finally leave the past behind.
Bibliography:
Lewandowska-Walter, A., Kazmierczak, M., Blażek, M., Kiełbratowska, B., Michałek, J. (2012). The nature of family ties and the determinants of their formation in the perinatal situation, Developmental Psychology, 17(2), pp. 23-29.
Madrid, A., Skolek, S., Shapiro, F. (2006). Repairing Failures in Bonding Through EMDR, Clinical Case Studies, 5(4), pp. 271-286.
Ogińska-Bulik, N., Juczynski, Z. (2010). Post-traumatic development – characteristics and measurement, Psychiatry, 7(4), pp. 129-142.