What is EMDR?
(Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing)
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What is the "Eye Movement" part of EMDR?
It is the process of back-and-forth (bilateral) eye movements which gives momentary opportunity for suppression of active cognition, thus allowing the neural networks that are associated with a negative memory to come to the forefront of consciousness.
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What is the "Desensitization" part of EMDR?
We tend to avoid painful, uncomfortable, and negative feelings, unconsciously thinking that the avoidance means the pain doesn’t exist. The goal of Desensitization is to bring to consciousness what has been avoided and decrease the level of distress of the memory that formed the original emotional learning.
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What is the "Reprocessing" part of EMDR?
As the neural networks associated with the suppressed emotional learning comes to the surface, it is then primed to be integrated into our adaptive and meaning-making system (neocortex). The more adaptive meaning (learning) will reconsolidate with the old learning, creating a new system that is characterized by less distress, triggering, and new perspective on an old wound.
8 Stages of EMDR
The process of EMDR will consist of 8 phases.
History/Intake - The goal is to gather information, evaluate, and assess whether or not EMDR is the appropriate treatment to help you reach your goal(s).
Preparation - The goal is to create and develop skills to help manage the (very real possibility) increased distress during the reprocessing phase.
Assessment/Target Planning - The goal is to narrow down targeted emotional learning, gather the level of distress, and identify the preferred adaptive cognition that would be integrated with the negative emotional learning.
Desensitization - The goal is to focus and pay attention to the target image, while holding the negative cognition, emotions, and sensations while engaging in a series of bilateral eye movements (or substitute activity). This will continue until desensitization is achieved or the process is stopped for other reasons (ex. emotions, images, cognitions are starting to go outside your window of tolerance). Redirection of focus may also occur in this stage.
Installation - When desensitization is achieved, the initially developed positive cognition is paired with eye movements. The important work of the Installation stage is the integration of information that has been held in a separate associate network from the negative (trauma) network.
Body Scan - The goal is to focus on the body, and noticing any discomfort or any residual sensation.
Closure - The goal is to debrief what you experienced and address any new material that may have come up in awareness.
Reevaluation - In this last stage, we will reassess the previous session’s target and decide what the next steps will be.
How many sessions does it take to experience freedom from my trauma?
There are different factors that affect each person’s EMDR outcome and experience.
the presence and level of dissociation
range of distress tolerance
the size and structure of the neural networks involved in the negative emotional learning
the brain’s unconscious defenses
the brain’s ability and speed the exchange of information from system to system.
Our brain’s neural architecture is determined by our genes and our environment. In other words, what we experience in childhood greatly impacts the architecture of our brain, which manifests in our behavior, perception, processing ability, etc.