EMDR Teletherapy

Some issues are hard to process.

The effects of a traumatic event (e.g., car accident, natural disaster, violence) can create continual distress, making you stay on guard, waiting for the event to reoccur. Suddenly, something can happen to trigger those feeling you had from that past event, making you relive it again. Living with trauma can impact you emotionally and physically, keeping you stuck.

Sometimes, it’s not even just one event that creates trauma, but an accumulation of negative experiences and lack of adequate support and care afterward.

Difficult and unresolved experiences from the past also can cause anxiety or depression, making it hard to get through the day.

Grief, loss, phobias, and other problems can linger, making it difficult to process and move on with your life. Under these circumstances, living an everyday life seems impossible.

EMDR may be the solution to your problem.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR therapy, is a well-researched and effective treatment for trauma, anxiety, depression, phobias, and other issues. It is one of the Veteran Administration’s top recommended treatments for veterans dealing with war trauma.

This form of therapy has been studied and shown to be effective with victims of sexual assault, survivors of natural disasters, and many other populations. EMDR has been used with adults and kids, in group settings, and online.

EMDR involves Bilateral Stimulation or BLS that stimulates and calls into action various parts of your brain that control different mental and physical functions to work together to process fragmented and disturbing memories.

BLS involves alternating tapping on your knees or with hands crossed in front of your chest in a “butterfly hug” or moving your eyes back and forth or listening to auditory tones that move from one ear to the other, back and forth. I know it sounds (and looks) a bit strange, but it is an important part of why EMDR works!

Desensitization helps minimize the effects of triggers.

Triggers can come from external situations like smells, sounds, voices, and images and internal occurrences such as thoughts, emotions, and body sensations.

Those triggers can hijack your nervous system, causing a fight or flight response or a dissociative or “shut down” response. That response is not based on an actual current threat but on an echo or remembrance of a previous negative experience.

EMDR acts as a calibration to your internal alarm system, allowing you to be less responsive to the past so that you can be more aware and rational in the present. Then, triggers will cease to bother you so much.

Reprocessing refers to your beliefs about yourself and the world.

Reprocessing helps you move from “How am I ever going to get over that this happened to me?” or “I’m damaged” to having more accurate, helpful, and positive beliefs.

Not only will you know these new beliefs to be valid rationally, but you will also feel them to be true emotionally and within your whole body. It will help you embrace your strengths, resources, and personal agency.

Moreover, you will gain a better connection and communication between parts of your brain and body containing positive information about your strengths to the ones that hold onto hurt and struggles.

Recovery is possible!

I have witnessed EMDR help my clients recover from difficult experiences faster and more completely than talk therapy alone.

I am certified in EMDR by the EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) and have used this treatment with clients for over five years.

If you are ready to learn more about how EMDR can help you and get started, please schedule your FREE 15-minute phone consultation today!