HEALING TRAUMA WITH EMDR
Trauma leaves a person thinking and feeling, “I can’t.” EMDR provides people with an opportunity to
take back their “I can.”
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a powerful therapeutic tool for treating and resolving trauma. Trauma can be defined as any negative event that overwhelms a person’s ability to process their experience, undermining their sense of safety and Self. When a person has been harmed in this way, they will carry their unprocessed feelings in their nervous system; there, the frozen feelings interfere with the person’s ability to make sense of their experience. As a result, the person develops erroneous beliefs about themselves and the world–beliefs which severely limit their self-confidence, self-efficacy and social skills. In other words, trauma leaves a person thinking and feeling, “I can’t.” EMDR provides people with an opportunity to take back their “I can.”
Research has shown that the body has the capacity to restore us to a calm, grounded place of healthy functioning. When a person’s nervous system is in trauma, the emotional right and logical left sides of the brain cease to communicate effectively. The therapist introduces a tool called bilateral stimulation (BLS) which uses alternating sounds or gentle tapping movements to integrate the functioning of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. This process allows the two hemispheres to share information, leading to a corrective experience for the client that supports emotional reconnection to their capabilities and resilience.
In an EMDR session, a client utilizes the support of the therapist, along with BLS, to access their own inner wisdom. With present-day supports, the client is able to return to the scene of the trauma in their mind’s eye, and to process suppressed feelings so that the traumatic memory or event no longer interrupts the client’s ability to function and thrive. As the old painful issues are processed, the client regains access to their intuition and clarity, paving the way for the resolution of trauma and the restored healthy flow of Self.
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a highly effective approach to healing the residual symptoms of emotional and physical trauma. Based on the research and development of Dr. Peter Levine, SE utilizes the innate human capacity to self-regulate, i.e., to bring ourselves back to a state of inner calm and wholeness following emotionally charged experiences.
Trauma occurs when a person’s psyche and nervous system have an experience that overwhelms their ability to respond in the moment. Dr. Levine recognized that animals in the wild routinely face threat, and yet, they are rarely traumatized. Animals utilize innate mechanisms for discharging the energy that gets bound in the nervous system following a traumatic event. We humans tend to rely on our highly developed brains and to talk ourselves out of our need for this important release.
Somatic Experiencing helps people to develop awareness of their body sensation or “felt sense.” This awareness allows the person to utilize their natural self-regulating capacity to safely and gradually release the energies trapped in their nervous system. When bound energy is safely released, the person is restored to a sense of ease, relaxation, and aliveness.