EMDR Therapy in Philadelphia

EMDR stands for Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is an evidenced based treatment that helps people fully recover from past disturbing events that continue to impact their lives and emotional well-being.

Sometimes when a trauma occurs it gets locked in the brain without being properly processed. When this happens, when we get triggered our brain is tricked into believing we are actually reliving the trauma rather than just remembering the event. There are Big T traumas, like being involved in a bad accident, death of a loved one, an assault etc. and there are Little t traumas, like bullying, an embarrassing incident, even a fight with a loved one. Sometimes, we actually find that repeated Little t traumas can affect us as much or more than a Big T trauma. No trauma is too small to process in EMDR. EMDR helps integrate all the necessary information so that we can remember past disturbing events without feeling like we are reliving them.

Our brains are amazing and have the ability to heal themselves. Many times the information we need to resolve a past event is already present it just needs help connecting to the traumatic material to bring relief. EMDR helps to integrate the needed information with the traumatic material using bi-lateral stimulation, meaning you will receive sensory input on alternating sides of your body. This can be done using eye movements, self or therapist administered tapping or using buzzers that you hold in your hands.

Virtual EMDR Therapy has been shown to offer just as effective results as in person EMDR therapy. Most often, I’ve had success with self-administered tapping as the primary form of bi-lateral stimulation.

Similar to other models, we still start out with history taking and rapport building. Sometimes, people enter therapy with a specific event in mind they would like to reprocess and other times we work to identify targets during history taking (and beyond). Then we will assess and build on external and internal resources that will support you in the re-processing phase. After talking together, we will decide when it is appropriate to start reprocessing.

When we are reprocessing a memory our sessions will look different than typical talk therapy but not every session is a reprocessing session.

In addition to traumatic events, EMDR can be used for many mental health concerns such as anxiety, panic attacks, depression, low self-esteem, negative self-beliefs just to name a few.

By the time we get to a reprocessing session, we’ve likely already identified the targets we would like to address. We will start the session by activating the memory network in the brain through a brief series of questions and then being the BLS. Once the BLS starts your job is simply to notice what is happening in your brain and body. We will continue on until the memory has been fully reprocessed. During these reprocessing sessions, it is common to not have much back and forth dialgue between the client and therapist as we are letting the brain do most of the work.