EMDR Therapy Is Showing Promising Results, but Can It Help Me?
Learn how EMDR and other types of treatments can help you heal from your trauma.
Are you living with unresolved trauma? From post-traumatic stress disorder to betrayal trauma, the after-effects can be debilitating. However, EMDR treatment can help you heal.
Traumatic events can become frozen in our minds. As a result, sounds, sights, or smells can trigger those memories. In an instant, a flashback takes you right to those moments of high distress. Your body experiences the same emotional intensity as it did the first time. It is exhausting and terrifying. However, through a therapeutic approach called EMDR, you can find relief.
EMDR therapy is highly successful for treating those with PTSD. Furthermore, this approach is helping people with other mental health issues. Can it help you too?
What is EMDR Therapy?
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy is a relatively new therapeutic approach. Through an eight-stage process, you can reprocess a traumatic event. Unlike other forms of talk therapy, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation of the brain.
Many people with post-traumatic stress disorder have found life-changing success through treatment. Likewise, it can help treat issues like anxiety, eating disorders, and depression.
How does EMDR therapy work?
To understand how EMDR works, it first helps to know what happens within the brain during the time the trauma occurs.
In the midst of a traumatic incident or intense fear, adrenaline releases, and your stress response takes over. As a result, the memories imprint within your brain, along with the fierce emotions of the moment. As a result, the memories remain in a place in your mind that can be easily triggered. So, when you see, hear, or smell something familiar to the event, it can take you right back to that moment as if it's happening for the first time. Hence the reason PTSD and other traumatic events can be so debilitating.
Because our brains are not hard-wired, healing is possible. During your session, your therapist will ask you to recall the details of your traumatic event. However, as you do, a bilateral stimulus, like side-to-side eye movement, is introduced. By stimulating both hemispheres in the brain, you can introduce new information and reprocess the moment. As a result, you can resolve and heal the trauma.
What are the benefits of EMDR therapy?
There are many benefits of EMDR therapy. According to the EMDR Institute, Inc., studies of this approach show that 84%-90% of single-trauma victims no longer have PTSD after three 90-minute sessions. (psycom.net) Through treatment, triggers lose their intensity. As a result, unresolved trauma will no longer threaten to interfere with your daily thoughts and activities. You can live your life without the debilitating effects of trauma or PTSD.
At Advanced Trauma Care & Recovery, we can help. Through EMDR treatment, you can overcome the adverse effects of your trauma. If you have unresolved trauma, this approach may be the solution you've been searching for. Help may be a phone call away. Call us today.
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