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What Is It?

Trauma can result from a single overwhelming event, ongoing stress, childhood experiences, abuse, accidents, medical issues, military service, or other life challenges. When traumatic experiences are not fully processed, they can continue to affect thoughts, emotions, relationships, and daily functioning long after the event has passed.

At 515 Therapy & Consulting, our therapists use evidence-based approaches, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), and other trauma-informed therapies to help individuals heal. While both EMDR and ART use guided eye movements to help the brain process traumatic experiences, they are different therapeutic approaches. EMDR helps the brain naturally reprocess distressing memories so they no longer feel as emotionally overwhelming. ART also uses guided eye movements but incorporates guided imagery techniques to help replace distressing mental images with more positive ones while preserving the factual memory. ART is often a more structured approach and, for some individuals, may provide meaningful relief in fewer sessions. Your therapist will work with you to determine which approach best fits your needs, goals, and experiences.

Trauma therapy is not about forgetting what happened—it's about helping your brain and body respond differently so the past no longer feels like it is controlling the present. As healing occurs, many people experience reduced anxiety, fewer trauma symptoms, improved emotional regulation, healthier relationships, greater confidence, and an increased sense of peace. Our goal is to provide a safe, supportive environment where you can process difficult experiences, build resilience, and move forward with hope.

About EMDR

Twenty positive controlled outcome studies have been done on EMDR.  Some of the studies show that 84%-90% of single-trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress disorder after only three 90-minute sessions. Another study, funded by the HMO Kaiser Permanente, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer were diagnosed with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. In other research, 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. There has been such extensive research on EMDR that it is now recognized as an effective form of treatment for trauma and other disturbing experiences by organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association and the Department of Defense. Given the worldwide recognition as an effective treatment of trauma, you can see how EMDR would be effective in treating the “everyday” memories that create low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, and the myriad problems that bring individuals in for therapy. Over 70,000 clinicians throughout the world use EMDR. Millions of people have been treated successfully over the past 20 years.

EMDR therapy is an eight-phase treatment.  Eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) are used during one part of the session. After the clinician has determined which memory to target first, the client is asked to hold different aspects of that event or thought in mind and to use his/her eyes to track the therapist's hand as it moves back and forth across the client's field of vision.  As this happens, for reasons believed by a Harvard researcher to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, internal associations arise and the client begins to process the memory and disturbing feelings. In successful EMDR therapy, the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level. For instance, a rape victim shifts from feeling horror and self-disgust to holding the firm belief that, "I survived it and I am strong."  Unlike talk therapy, the insights clients gain in EMDR result from the client’s own accelerated intellectual and emotional processes, not clinical interpretation. The net effect is that clients report feeling empowered by the very experiences that once debased them. Their wounds have not just closed, they have transformed. As a natural outcome of the EMDR therapeutic process, the clients’ thoughts, feelings and behavior are robust indicators of emotional health and resolution—all without speaking in detail or doing homework, which is sometimes used in other types of therapy.

Retrieved from www.EMDRIA.com