Does EMDR Therapy Work For Trauma? (Yes)
Historically, EMDR as a psychotherapy treatment, was used for treating PTSD and trauma induced conditions. Trauma is still one of the main conditions that can be treated and healed with the help of EMDR.
But, what exactly is trauma? What is EMDR therapy? How does EMDR help with trauma? Well, let’s start at the top, explain the whole process and understand the profound benefit that EMDR can provide for trauma survivors.
What is a trauma?
Trauma is a disturbing and distressing event that causes negative feelings like fear, helplessness, confusion, emotional pain, shame, or any other kind of negative emotions and emotional states. The signs of trauma include:
Difficulties in everyday functioning like work and personal engagements
Problems concentrating, memorizing, organizing
Negative feelings of anxiousness, sadness, shame, guilt, hopelessness, fear and the like
Difficulties connecting and maintaining relationships with others
Emotional outbursts or quick and sudden emotional changes when triggered
Nightmares, flashbacks, or intrusive thoughts that can’t be controlled or ignored
Difficulties sleeping, eating, maintaining hygiene, or finishing chores
Avoidant feelings toward people and places that remind you of the trauma
Avoidant feelings toward situations that even remotely remind you of the trauma
Feelings of numbness, disorganization, forgetfulness
Using and abusing substances like alcohol or drugs to mask or avoid feelings
Types of Trauma
Trauma is the core behind many conditions treated with the help of EMDR. It can include any form or type of physical or emotional abuse, injury, threats, or the possibility of death or emotional pain. Trauma can be broadly divided into two forms: acute (one-time exposure to a traumatic situation) or complex (repeated exposure to traumatic situations).
Here are some examples of traumatic experiences:
Physical or sexual assault
Sexual abuse
Major trauma (risk of death or permanent injury)
Community violence
Bullying
Secondary trauma (witnessing traumatic events happening around you)
Terrorism
Accidents
Collective trauma (trauma happening to a bigger population at the same time)
Natural disasters
Research consistently shows that people who have experienced trauma are at a higher risk of suffering from PTSD, suicidal behavior, depressive disorder, alcohol and drug abuse, as well as numerous medical problems and health conditions like joint pain, cardiovascular conditions, and neurological conditions. Furthermore, trauma survivors are shown to struggle with relationships and have interpersonal problems, managing money and obtaining wealth, and difficulties parenting and taking care of children.
What is EMDR therapy?
EMDR is a type of a structured psychotherapy that treats clients by helping them process distressing traumatic events. The acronym stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The theory behind this type of psychotherapy is that traumatic experiences and memories can stay unprocessed in the brain, and when they do so, they cause all kinds of emotional and psychological difficulties. People who have experienced any kind of trauma, often go back and ruminate about those past experiences and events, often evoking the same emotional and psychological disturbances, thus “reliving” the trauma over and over again. This, in psychiatric terms, can turn into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD.) Even if it doesn’t develop into post-traumatic stress, those distressing experiences can result in anxiety, depression or other kinds of trauma-related symptoms or conditions.
What can EMDR therapy help with?
EMDR, in its early stages, started as a treatment for PTSD and trauma-related experiences, both single distressing events like a car accident, or a series of distressing events like chronic emotional neglect during childhood.
Over time, Eye desensitization therapy showed to be highly successful for treating all kinds of anxiety connected problems, including depression, phobias, and panic attacks. Today, Eye desensitization and reprocessing can also be used for substance abuse, chronic pain, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, hypervigilance, chronic fear, and the like.
Can EMDR therapy help with trauma coping?
Trauma is the primary target of EMDR and the method is one of the most effective ones. As the American Psychological Association states, EMDR is successful because, opposed to other talk therapies, which try to alter the thoughts and emotions that result from a traumatic experience; EMDR focuses directly on the memory and the way it is stored and recalled.
In a study conducted by the American Psychological Association and their division of Psychotherapy, 67 participants that were suffering from PTSD were divided and given either EMDR therapy or another, standard treatment. At the end of the study, participants that underwent EMDR psychotherapy showed lower symptoms of PTSD, depression and anxiety only after 3 sessions. Furthermore, they needed less medication and psychotherapy appointments.
How does EMDR therapy work for trauma coping?
When we experience trauma, two parts of our brain, the hippocampus and the amygdala, go into hyperdrive, affecting our short-term memory processes and the storage of fearful memories. In cases like this, our rational brain shuts down thus interfering with experience processing and memory. So, in a way, the traumatic experiences stay stuck and unprocessed in the brain.
EMDR works to calibrate these two brain regions with the help of bilateral stimulation i.e. rapid eye movement, mimicking our REM sleep and helping the brain process the trauma, this time with the help of the rational brain.
As EMDR is a structured psychotherapy method, it follows a more structured protocol, where each session focuses on a particular part of a traumatic experience, or follows through a set of traumatic experiences.
Furthermore, each session is conducted in a fee stages. Even though all stages in EMDR therapy have to be maintained, they vary in length and complexity and can be adjusted to meet the individuals’ needs.
How does an EMDR session go for trauma?
When conducting EMDR therapy for trauma, the process starts with treatment planning and patient history questionnaire. These things are essential for the therapist to evaluate the client’s profile, their background, the necessary details about the trauma and the current state of the client. This step also ensures that I, as a therapist, am completely aware of the client’s ability to expose and tolerate distressing memories, as EMDR therapy for PTSD will inevitably talk about the trauma that happened. All this information is then used to come up with a structured plan about the treatment and the therapy itself.
In the second phase, me and the client prepare for the treatment, going over the conduct of EMDR therapy, the steps and the processes, as well as the coping strategies that they can use therapeutically.
In the third step, an assessment is done in order to pinpoint the traumatic memory that the therapy will focus on. This includes details about the experience, as well as the negative symptoms that the patient experiences.
In the fourth phase, desensitization to the traumatic event is done with the help of a bilateral stimulation and eye movement. This process is neurological, allowing the client to feel and sense their physical sensations while talking about the traumatic event.
From there, in the fifth stage, positive thoughts, coping experiences and beliefs are included into the memory of the traumatic event. The goal of this step is to ensure that the person lowers the effects of the traumatic experience by also having some positive thoughts about it. This does not mean that the client starts lying to themselves about the trauma and how it happened. This process enables the client to deal with the traumatic situation, lower the triggers in the present and cope with the negative feelings when they come with the help of new beliefs that more accurately portray what happened or reflect a part of the trauma that is sometimes out of awareness (for example “I did everything that I can.”)
In the last few stages of the process, body scans are conducted to check for any possible lingering physical sensations when the client recalls the traumatic event, and the therapy session is closed with ending feedback and re-evaluation of both the patient and the therapist about the whole session and process.
In summary, this is how an EMDR session goes. The process repeats multiple times, as long as the client has emotional reactions to the past traumatic experience, parts of the experience or different traumatic experiences that might have happened over the course of their life.
How long does it take for EMDR therapy to work for trauma?
Each person has an individual reaction to an EMDR therapy, but one typical EMDR session lasts around 60 to 90 minutes. The whole process of EMDR therapy, from initial session to complete healing can take anywhere between 3 and 12 sessions. The length mainly depends on the nature of the trauma itself, as well as the client and their needs, where they are in terms of processing the experience, and how fast they integrate the new beliefs.
Conclusion
Trauma is one of the most distressing and mental-health impairing experiences that can significantly hinder a person’s wellbeing.
EMDR works directly on the traumatic experiences, helping the patient “live through” the experience and release all of the emotions and somatic sensations that they might still carry, years after the traumatic experience itself. In the process, new thoughts and beliefs are imprinted, helping the client see the whole traumatic experience more indifferently and without strong emotional or physical reactions.
Working with an experienced EMDR therapist can help individuals that have suffered trauma, to release all of the negative build-up and obtain skills to better cope with the trauma, eliminate possible present-day triggers and lover the strong emotional reactions.
Contact us today to take the first step on your healing journey.