What's Involved with EMDR Therapy?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy tool, used to treat a variety of anxiety issues and trauma. It's recognised as the go-to therapy treatment for PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) as well as other traumatic response symptoms.
At the core of PTSD is thought to be the inability to stop a conditioned fear response (PTSD; Milad and Quirk, 2012; Van Elzakker et al, 2014.)
EMDR itself involves a series of eye-movements, which connect to the neural pathways in the brain, assisting in the alleviation of physical symptoms of the trauma as well as emotional symptoms and cognitions. Along with a series of eye-movements, bilateral sounds and physical movements are also used.
How does bilateral stimulation work?
Humans are creatures of habituation. Habituation is a person's decreased response to a stimulus/situation after repeated presentations. That is, growing accustomed to a stimulus or situation over time or repetition. An example of this would be hearing a bell ring, say a church bell nearby. At first, that sound would draw your attention to it and it may be distracting, breaking your thoughts or actions. If that bell was to continue to strike on the hour every hour, you would gradually become accustomed to that sound, paying less or no attention to it and your focus on it would diminish.
Our natural response to new stimuli or situations is orientation of the nervous system to that stimuli. This is a primal reaction for survival. That is, a new stimuli needs to be paid attention to as it might be a dangerous animal about to threaten our existence, for example. As our nervous system orientates to that new stimuli, what was our focus or in our mind previously gets pushed away, however momentary, and the body learns to switch off from what your mind was focusing on and orientates to the new stimuli. If this happens repeatedly, habituation will occur and the new stimuli is incorporated into unconscious learning. EMDR helps habituate to a calmer, healed state. As such, EMDR can be said to be an 'exposure therapy' .
During EMDR and bilateral stimulation you will be asked to focus on either memories, feelings, bodily sensations or thoughts that create a negative reaction from you. While doing so, you will be asked to move the eyes back and forth, whilst listening to auditory bilateral sounds and participating in bilateral movements. This activity "interrupts" the flow of the memories and feelings, leading to changes in the emotional, mental and physical reactions to them - a form of operant conditioning. Bilateral stimulation is known to reduce the physical symptoms of stress.
Contact Angela via message or call her on 07736 480 376.
At the core of PTSD is thought to be the inability to stop a conditioned fear response (PTSD; Milad and Quirk, 2012; Van Elzakker et al, 2014.)
EMDR itself involves a series of eye-movements, which connect to the neural pathways in the brain, assisting in the alleviation of physical symptoms of the trauma as well as emotional symptoms and cognitions. Along with a series of eye-movements, bilateral sounds and physical movements are also used.
How does bilateral stimulation work?
Humans are creatures of habituation. Habituation is a person's decreased response to a stimulus/situation after repeated presentations. That is, growing accustomed to a stimulus or situation over time or repetition. An example of this would be hearing a bell ring, say a church bell nearby. At first, that sound would draw your attention to it and it may be distracting, breaking your thoughts or actions. If that bell was to continue to strike on the hour every hour, you would gradually become accustomed to that sound, paying less or no attention to it and your focus on it would diminish.
Our natural response to new stimuli or situations is orientation of the nervous system to that stimuli. This is a primal reaction for survival. That is, a new stimuli needs to be paid attention to as it might be a dangerous animal about to threaten our existence, for example. As our nervous system orientates to that new stimuli, what was our focus or in our mind previously gets pushed away, however momentary, and the body learns to switch off from what your mind was focusing on and orientates to the new stimuli. If this happens repeatedly, habituation will occur and the new stimuli is incorporated into unconscious learning. EMDR helps habituate to a calmer, healed state. As such, EMDR can be said to be an 'exposure therapy' .
During EMDR and bilateral stimulation you will be asked to focus on either memories, feelings, bodily sensations or thoughts that create a negative reaction from you. While doing so, you will be asked to move the eyes back and forth, whilst listening to auditory bilateral sounds and participating in bilateral movements. This activity "interrupts" the flow of the memories and feelings, leading to changes in the emotional, mental and physical reactions to them - a form of operant conditioning. Bilateral stimulation is known to reduce the physical symptoms of stress.
Contact Angela via message or call her on 07736 480 376.