How does EMDR work?
In an important sense, EMDR is a three-part therapy that deals simultaneously with the past, present and future. I will guide you to facilitate this healing process. This process includes a technique known as bilateral stimulation, which will be used to activate the brain so that it can begin to process and integrate dysfunctional stored information – those locked traumatic memories – in a more adaptive way. EMDR is a simple process that creates a powerful effect. It consists of an alternating left-right stimulation of the body and brain. This is accomplished with tones delivered...
Read MoreWhy EMDR – Healing Emotional Pain
Whenever something happens and, at the time, you are unable to process the event, you are left feeling distressed, the symptoms stay with you, and will not go away this is considered a “trauma response.” These trauma events can be little traumas “bullying, abandonment, childhood parental deficiencies, etc or big traumas like assault, rape, seeing a loved one killed in front of you, etc. What we feel and think will reflect our pains and our joy through thought and behavioral patterns. EMDR works with the whole person, both the body and the mind. The events you have experienced may seem...
Read MoreThe Emotional Pool of Pain
Our emotionally painful experiences are unique to each person. This pool of pain contains the hurt we have accumulated over the years, whether minor or major. Each person reacts to the intensity of the events differently. Even if you had perfect parents, painful experience happen; you or a loved one becomes ill; a teacher at school yells at you; you are left alone while your parents work; your pet is accidentally killed; your beloved grandparents die; you see major tragedies regularly on the television news. Life is difficult. When we experience pain and we are unable to release and deal...
Read MoreTreating Anxiety Disorders with EMDR
Treating Anxiety Disorders with EMDR By Robin Shapiro ‘EMDR Solutions’ Everyone needs anxiety: Anxiety can be an effective early warning that something is awry: that you’ve just left your wallet at the store or that the car ahead of you is swerving erratically. WATCH OUT! According to Daniel Siegel (2003), our bodies respond to fear-producing symptoms before we can name what’s happening. Our lower brain gets our body ready to move; then our brain tells us what to do. Anxiety can serve as a social control. (When’s the last time you picked your nose in public?) It can be a course...
Read MoreUsing EMDR Therapy to Heal Your Past: Interview with Creator Francine Shapiro
Francine Shapiro, Ph.D, first discovered and developed EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) in 1987 to help people process traumatic memories. Today, EMDR is recognized by the US Department of Defense and the American Psychiatric Association as an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traumatic memories come in many types. While some may involve violence or physical abuse, others involve everyday life experiences, such as relationship problems or unemployment, according to Shapiro in her recently published book, Getting Past Your Past: Take...
Read MoreEMDR Can Build Self Esteem Faster than Talk Therapy
Self Esteem generally gets established based on a) Feedback from the people around us–especially during childhood, and b) How much sense of mastery in our world we develop. When feedback from parents, siblings, peers, teachers, etc is shaming, children often don’t develop good self-esteem. Children take feedback that is punishing, contemptuous, insulting, undermining, teasing, mean, neglectful, unappreciating, bullying, abusive and so on as information that they are not worth much. When this is the source of low self-esteem, EMDR can often help, because each of these...
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