Here at Pollema Counseling Center, we get a lot of questions from clients about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and how it works. In this blog, you will hear from two of our therapists who are trained in EMDR. Lauren Pollema who has been using EMDR in practice for about 6 years and Elyse Dunham who has recently been trained in EMDR and beginning to work with clients using this modality. We hope that these two perspectives will help our clients understand EMDR and what they can expect from this type of therapy.
Lauren Pollema shares about her experience using EMDR with clients:
“It is important to understand first how the brain becomes traumatized before we can understand how EMDR works to heal trauma. Three key things happen in the brain during a traumatic event:
1. Your prefrontal cortex shuts down which is responsible for logical decision making.
2. The Broca’s area of the brain shuts down. This is the part of your brain responsible for converting thoughts to speech.
3. EMDR is based on the Adaptive Information Processing Model. This model explains that your brain is capable of properly encoding difficult memories, but because your brain shuts down during trauma, the brain is unable to encode the trauma memory properly. Therefore, the trauma memory gets “stuck” in the amygdala which is the emotion and fear center of the brain. This is why people experience PTSD (flashbacks, heightened emotion and Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn responses).
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (BLS), through moving your eyes side to side, which means that both halves of the brain are fully online while recalling the traumatic event. The Adaptive Information Processing Model believes that the brain has the innate capacity to integrate negative experiences and EMDR puts the brain in a safe state to process and integrate traumatic memories. The client can also successfully process without needing to talk about the event.”
Elyse Dunham shares about her experience learning about EMDR:
Having an understanding of how our brains process trauma can be immensely validating and voices the experiences that we sometimes cannot put a finger on when we are dealing with the residual symptoms of adverse experiences. But it is also very empowering to know that our brains have the capability to bring immense healing with some help from EMDR. One aspect of engaging in EMDR therapy that can feel daunting is understanding the effects that this type of therapy has on your traumatic memories. In order to help you make sense of this experiences, here are a few analogies that helped me make sense of the EMDR process that I learned in my own training:
If our brains and body are the hardware, our memories (whether pleasant or adverse) are the software. By engaging in EMDR, we are updating the coding of those improperly stored memories to the newest version.
Our improperly encoded memories can have adverse symptoms on our bodies, this can be similar to having a knot in your back. With EMDR, you can massage the tightness away and release the maladaptive emotions that are tied to your traumatic memories.
When we are carrying around unprocessed memories, it can feel like we are frozen in that time and place. The process of EMDR helps us turn the PDF version of our memories into a Word document that is more malleable.
I hope these analogies are helpful in making sense of the EMDR experience. With its popularity, I believe there are many assumptions made about this therapeutic modality. So, I hope this information helps you feel equipped and informs you to make the best decision for your mental health journey. One assumption that I hope to dispel is the idea that you can only use EMDR if you have experienced major trauma in your life. How we exper
ience an event is subjective and is ours to make sense of alone. You do not have to feel the need to downplay your experiences just because it does not fit the criteria of a major trauma. We want to offer you a sense of healing no matter what adverse life experiences you are seeking help for and hope you feel empowered in that decision. Please reach out if you think EMDR could be the right fit for you!
If you feel that you could benefit from EMDR therapy or have some questions for our team, please fill out a contact form here.
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