Trauma Therapy and EMDR

Trauma is a severe emotional or psychological response to a deeply distressing or overwhelming event that surpasses a person’s ability to cope. It causes lasting damage to mental, physical, and emotional well-being, often resulting in feelings of fear, helplessness, and danger. Common synonyms include injury, shock, wounding, damage, and impairment. 

We often experience challenge and things that upset us, and most experiences are processed in such a way that they are understood by our mind and our body as having happened in the past, so while they may be upsetting or uncomfortable memories, they do not interrupt our everyday functioning. When we experience trauma, this processing does not happen. Essentially, trauma is a deeply distressing or overwhelming experience that surpasses a person’s ability to cope with it. Some areas of the brain shut down that would usually process the experience in the usual way and the memory can become ‘stuck’, remaining vivid, intense and extremely distressing. We may be left with difficulty regulating our emotions, you may have nightmares or flashbacks, you may struggle to relax and your sleep may be impacted. You may respond in ways that seem unpredictable, not knowing that you have unknowingly perceived a trigger that has cued your mind and body into a response to threat.

In childhood, we would have been particularly susceptible to experiences that threatened our sense and safety, and we will have had fewer means to defend or protect ourselves or to get the help and support we needed.

You may be impacted in the long term by your mood being affected, suffering from periods of low mood or depression. You may be anxious and hypervigilant – always alert to possible threats or challenges around you. Your sleep may be impacted. Your relationships may be affected, you may find it difficult to trust others or to open up and be dependent on others, or conversely you may find it hard to protect and value yourself, to make and hold boundaries.

Trauma can be processed in lots of ways. It can help to talk through traumatic events safely – for example, with a therapist you have developed a good relationship with. It is important that when you do this you stay grounded and are able to discern what is past and what is happening now – both in your mind and your body, so that you remain regulated and present. This way, the distress associated with traumatic memories is reduced along with the impact of trauma (flashbacks, nightmares, upsetting thoughts or images, depression and anxiety).

EMDR:

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is one approach that can be used. It is a NICE recommended approach to trauma with a strong evidence base. It involves focussing on the traumatic memory while simultaneously engaging bilateral stimulation. The bilateral stimulation can be applied in different ways – e.g eye movements, self-tapping or ‘butterfy taps’, or holding devices that pulsate in each hand. This way, parts of the brain that process in time, for instance, remain engaged and the memory is stored differently in the brain, reducing the distress and related symptoms.

EMDR was discovered by Francine Shapiro in 1987 and was first used for treating PTSD, though it has now been developed to treat a variety of mental health problems, including phobias, addictions, anxiety and depression.

If you engage with EMDR with me, it will be as part of a broader therapeutic process, building on your self-awareness and insight to allow deeper processing of longstanding issues to support lasting change.