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 incidents is a trauma. When EMDR clears the impact of these traumas, these negative messages about the person–whether still a child, or now an adult with this kind of foundation–are replaced by messages of compassion and appreciation of ones worth. In this way, EMDR can be one of the most powerful tools we have for repairing self-esteem.
The EMDR process doesn’t teach people to change their view of themselves, like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy does. With EMDR, the negative beliefs just suddenly don’t make sense to the person anymore. They don’t have to practice–they just believe a more positive view of themselves without having to think about it anymore.
