Unlock Healing for Past Traumas: EMDR Therapy Explained

Old wounds can end up controlling our thoughts, feelings, and actions. When that happens – it can be frustrating, confusing, shameful, and depressing. Many people who start trauma therapy feel unsure of how to navigate a deeper healing journey – it can feel like you are trying to take a complicated train ride in a foreign country alone, but you don’t speak the language.

In EMDR therapy, you will get the effective skills you need to discover ways of coping that work. Moving beyond that, you will then find practical skills and knowledge (that are already inside you!) that will help you navigate the journey through your past. It’s like learning how to speak the language in that foreign country and having a co-pilot (that’s me!) there with you. It makes it a MUCH easier journey.

Studies have found that up to 100% of single-trauma clients and up to 84% of CPTSD clients have found significant relief from their symptoms with the support of EMDR therapy. (Shapiro, 2014).

How EMDR/Trauma Therapy Works

Trauma therapy consists of 53-minute, one-on-one sessions that help you work through your concerns. In addition to listening, I will validate your experience, support you with new skills, and guide you with experiences to reprocess your past; I play an active role.

Once we’ve developed a strong relationship and you build trust with me, we will begin to deepen the work of identifying difficulties, stressors, pressures, and unwanted thoughts. I strategically integrate other therapeutic approaches (like creative arts/expressive therapy, IFS, mindfulness) into EMDR to support you with staying motivated in the work. You will develop new skills, kind of like packing your bags for the train ride ahead — we will be prepared and feel ready for the journey through those past memories.

Once we get to the place where we actively process traumatic material and memories – it’s rather quick. We don’t have to spend a ton of time verbalizing every moment of those experiences — that can be really re-traumatizing. Instead we use some bi-lateral stimulation to keep the brain active and encourage your mind to heal organically.

It’s kind of like the way that you go to a doctor to get stitches. But the doctor doesn’t actually heal your body, do they? No, your body does! It’s the same system with your mind. In therapy, we are just cleaning the wound, setting it up, and creating the right environment to where you mind can do the healing.

I usually blend EMDR with IFS and other supportive approaches including somatic work, mindfulness, and creative arts therapies, depending upon what feels right for you.

I’ve helped people make sense of their past traumas by understanding how overwhelming experiences affect our thoughts, feelings, and actions. With new understanding, many people find they are able to heal deep core beliefs, find clarity about who they authentically are, and find more calm every day.