WHAT IS EMDR?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a comprehensive psychotherapy that helps you process and recover from past experiences that are affecting your mental health and wellbeing.
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It involves using side to side eye movements combined with talk therapy in a specific and structured format.
WHAT CAN EMDR BE USED FOR?
EMDR can help you to process the negative images, emotions, beliefs and body sensations associated with traumatic memories that seem to be stuck. These can contribute to a range of mental health problems. It can also help you to see things from a different perspective and relieves the symptoms that you were suffering.
In addition to its use for the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, EMDR has been successfully used to treat:
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Anxiety and panic attacks
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Depression
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Sleep problems
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Stress
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Phobias
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Complicated grief
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Addictions
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Pain
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Self-esteem and performance anxiety
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EMDR can accelerate therapy by resolving the impact of past traumas and allowing you to live more fully in the present.
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EMDR sessions
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EMDR can be brief focused treatment or part of a longer psychotherapy programme. EMDR sessions can be for 60 to 90 minutes.
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EMDR utilises the natural healing ability of your body.
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After a thorough assessment, you will be asked specific questions about a particular disturbing memory.
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Eye movements, similar to those during REM sleep, will be recreated simply by asking you to watch the therapist's finger moving backwards and forwards across your visual field. Sometimes, a bar of moving lights or headphones is used instead.
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The eye movements will last for a short while and then stop. You will then be asked to report back on the experiences you have had during each of these sets of eye movements.
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Experiences during a session may include changes in thoughts, images and feelings.
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With repeated sets of eye movements, the memory tends to change in such a way that it loses its painful intensity and simply becomes a neutral memory of an event in the past.
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Other associated memories may also heal at the same time. This linking of related memories can lead to a dramatic and rapid improvement in many aspects of your life.
