Can Moving Your Eyes Heal Trauma? With This Method, It’s Possible!

Can moving your eyes heal trauma? This is a simplified premise of EMDR therapy, which is transforming mental health by rewiring the brain. This article dives into how it works and why it’s changing lives.

WORDS FAITH FOO

FEATURED EXPERT FAITH FOO Director of ABRI Integrated Mental Health Director of The Bridge International Hub (Korean Counseling Centre) Registered & Licensed Counsellor Certified EMDR Therapist Certified Coaching & Mentoring Professional HRD Corp-Certified Trainer Published Author Website | Facebook | YouTube

While eye movement desensitization and reprocessing or EMDR therapy is not as new as some people may think, it is receiving more and more attention through media, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) support groups, veteran organizations, survivors of abuse programs, and many other mental health related platforms.

WHAT IS EMDR?

• The psychologist Francine Shapiro developed EMDR in 1987 as she grappled with her own disturbing memory.
• First, she experimented on herself, flitting her eyes back and forth as she walked through a park.
• “I noticed that when disturbing thoughts came into my mind, my eyes spontaneously started moving very rapidly back and forth. The thoughts disappeared, and when I brought them back to mind, their negative charge was greatly reduced,” she wrote of her observations.
• Gradually, she expanded the treatment to other people.

EMDR Helps to Facilitate the Transformation of Trauma and Distress into Resolution and More Adaptive Coping

• Not to be confused with hypnosis. They are not the same thing!
• EMDR is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences and traumatic events.
• Experts believe that past traumatic experiences can continue to cause problems in your life if you haven’t properly processed the memory of that experience.
• This can create a sense of being overwhelmed, of being back in that moment where you may feel frozen in time.
• When these memories are triggered, so are the negative elements of the initial event, causing symptoms of PTSD or other mental health disorders.

What Happens When You Have an Unprocessed or ‘Frozen’ Memory?

• The brain has a way of processing disturbing memories so that you experience the events as having ended. Oh, it was a lousy, terrible, horrific thing that had happened—you’re so glad it is over!
• However, sometimes this process gets stuck and the memory network stay frozen in the brain. It is as though the part of you that experienced that event isn’t really clear about the fact that the event is over.
• You may have flashbacks, so you feel you are actually still living out that situation.
• You may find yourself triggered by something in the present that makes you respond as if you were in that situation.
• You may hold beliefs about yourself that are associated with that memory—beliefs that are no longer valid, if they ever were.

How Traumatic Memory Affects You

Traumatic memories reside in the brain differently from usual memories.

Usual memories fit neatly into our life narratives. They have a place, time, and context, and stand out only if they were particularly emotive, like photos in a chronologically-ordered album.

On the other hand, traumatic memories are stored as lessons learned in order to help protect us from future threats.

• Traumatic experiences become trauma when our fight-or-flight senses try to protect us from a terrifying or dangerous event and fail, such as when we want to escape, but are trapped.
• Since the fight-or-flight survival instinct has failed, it jams. Nothing can be trusted in the same way; anything can be a threat. A traumatized person is always on watch for threat, being hyper-vigilant.
• The animal, instinctive part of the brain is where trauma lives, and our consciousness can’t dig deep enough to touch it. We can’t talk ourselves out of triggers because triggers are by nature irrational—logic doesn’t reach that far.

Someone that lives with trauma can only achieve so much control over their symptoms such as:

• Anxiety
• Insomnia
• Irritableness
• High tension
• Fidgety
• Easily startled or frightened

Many get through the day by merely managing them.

Ongoing, never-resting vigilance is draining, and it takes its toll on the body, mind, and being.

How EMDR Helps Us Heal

Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy, people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference.

• EMDR seems to kick-start that natural healing process to move the memory through, and it does this at an accelerated rate.
• In effect, the memory is moved into the past—you are now certain that the event is over.

UNDERGOIN EMDR

Using the detailed EMDR protocols and procedures, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.

Therapists carry out EMDR in 8 phases:

1. History taking
2. Client preparation
3. Assessment
4. Desensitization
5. Installation
6. Body scan
7. Closure
8. Re-evaluation of treatment effect

EMDR typically unfold over 6 to 12 sessions, although that number varies from person to person.

Each session tends to last between 60 and 90 minutes.

In the Beginning

• Therapist will discuss the patient’s current challenges, gathering information about their history, and then propose a plan for treatment.
• The patient may need to ‘float back’ from their current symptoms, exploring a recent emotional outburst or panic attack to isolate the triggers that provoked it.
• The goal is to identify a traumatic memory that a patient can work through in the later EMDR phases.

Establishing Coping Strategies

• The client and the therapist will devise coping strategies, such as breathing exercises or meditation to help combat dissociation when the client becomes distressed during or between sessions.

Recalling the Traumatic Event

• Once coping strategies are established, typically after 1 or 2 sessions, the therapist instructs the client to recall the most difficult aspect of the traumatic event.
• It could be an image, sound or smell that intrudes on their thoughts most often; for some clients, the most vivid memory related to a trauma took place.
• The client will focus on the sensations and emotions they experience while thinking about this aspect, as they engage in activities like moving their eyes, tapping on their body, or hearing a faint beeping sound that alternates between their ears.
• Each set of these bilateral stimulations typically lasts between 30 and 60 seconds.

The process led by the therapist is purely practical, like air traffic control directing you to land while the view from the plane window remains completely private.

IS EMDR FOR YOU?

If you’re suffering with PTSD, grief, abuse or similar trauma—the symptoms of which are known to contribute to drug and alcohol addiction—EMDR therapy may be for you.

Many of my EMDR clients report increased self-esteem, lowered stress and anxiety, and the release of pain and fear related to old ideas and memories.

IF YOU ARE SEEKING EMDR TREATMENT, PLEASE SHOULD MAKE SURE YOU FIND A CERTIFIED SPECIALIST

It has to be one you can trust and tell everything to.

You MUST be comfortable with your therapist before attempting EMDR therapy.

EMDR therapy makes you relive your trauma and can result in flashbacks. Flashbacks can re-traumatize someone, which is why it’s important to do this type of therapy with a therapist who is not only qualified but also makes you feel as comfortable as possible.