EMDR | The Queer Psychotherapy Collective

Treating trauma requires a unique approach.

Trauma can impact an individual’s life and be downright destructive to relationships, health, and mental well-being. Individuals suffering from the effects of trauma can live in constant fear that the event responsible for the trauma will occur again.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach based on extensive research that has proven effective in treating trauma.

This method of psychotherapy involves a set of standardized protocols that incorporate elements from different treatment approaches.

Here’s how EMDR works.

EMDR therapy repeatedly uses bilateral stimulation to activate opposite sides of the brain. The therapist often uses eye movements to facilitate this bilateral stimulation.

These eye movements mimic the period of sleep referred to as rapid eye movement or REM sleep, and this portion of sleep is the time thought to be when the mind processes the recent events in the person’s life.

EMDR seems to help the brain reprocess the trapped memories, allowing the person to replace those bad memories with more standard information.

Therapists often use EMDR to help clients uncover and process beliefs developed due to relational traumas or childhood abuse and/or neglect. For a more detailed explanation, please visit EMDR Institute, Inc. (https://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr).

EMDR treats complications from trauma and helps you love yourself.

The original use of EMDR was to treat PTSD, but therapists have found EMDR helpful in treating other emotional and physical problems.

The complications of grief can keep a person from moving forward. EMDR helps individuals process grief, replacing the loss with better memories.

EMDR helps treat individuals suffering from panic attacks, dissociative orders, addictions, phobias, personality, body dysmorphic, pain disorders, and stress.

Sexual and physical abuse can create disturbing memories and cause lasting traumatic effects. Such effects can impact future relationships, causing performance anxiety or the inability to trust someone, even a partner. EMDR can help with these types of problems.

Can you identify with any of the above problems?

EMDR is proven to be effective in treating a variety of issues.

If you relate to any of the abovementioned problems, you are a potential candidate for EMDR therapy.