Do You Struggle With Upsetting Memories? EMDR Can Help

My therapist dumped me.

No, I’m not kidding. Yes, it really happened.

Was it quite so dramatic? Well, no. I guess it wasn’t. She was getting close to retirement and decided to scale back her hours. As one of her newest patients, I was first on the chopping block.

Totally understood. But it left me in the often-exhausting position of needing to find a new therapist that I felt like I could connect with. So when I finally did, I was excited to sit down with her in person for our first session.

“So,” she began. “Are you here for EMDR therapy?”

I stared blankly at her, and she went on to explain that many of her clients reach out to her because she’s an EMDR practitioner.

When I told her I didn’t know what that was, she painted me a picture of deep thoughts, bright lights and clicking things, and my heart sank.

“Oh no,” I thought. “Is she a quack? I didn’t get that vibe from her at all. Oh NO.”

I’ll cut to the chase here, and tell you that – as “woo” as it all sounded to me upon first hearing the explanation – my amazing therapist was NOT a quack.

And, in fact, her use of EMDR in our sessions has been, hands-down, the most effective therapy I have ever participated in.

EMDR is life-changing.

Let me start by saying that I am a huge proponent of therapy. I’m hard-pressed to believe there are many folks who wouldn’t benefit from talking out their stresses and struggles with a qualified professional now and again.

And with a background of trauma, anxiety and depression, it’s a good thing I feel that way – because therapy has been part of my life for a long time.

I’ve done plenty of talk therapy. I’ve done cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). I even had a therapist who dabbled in a bit of hypnosis. It all came with benefits, and it’s all made a difference for me.

But when this new therapist started guiding me through EMDR sessions, I felt the world shift underneath me. And that’s not an exaggeration.

...Okay, it’s an exaggeration. But you get it.

So what is EMDR, anyway?

EMDR is a reprocessing technique that allows you to change your own associations with the bad memories you have. You can retrain your brain to hold those memories differently, making them less upsetting.

You can learn to not feel so bad about the things that have negatively impacted you in the past.

Short for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, EMDR therapy developed as a way to address Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the anxiety associated with traumatic memories.

And the discovery of this technique happened pretty serendipitously: in 1987, Dr. Francine Shapiro – then a psychology student – was walking through a park in hopes of calming herself down. She looked back and forth, trying to distract herself, and she realized that her triggering memories suddenly felt less powerful(1).

As she continued to study this phenomenon, Dr. Shapiro realized the eye movements by themselves were not quite enough. She began to add more components to the practice, including targeted talk and guidance(2) to support the desensitization that seemed to be occurring.

Years later, many studies have supported her findings: EMDR therapy is overwhelmingly effective in decreasing the negative emotions associated with past traumas and disturbing memories – and quickly(3).

The practice is tailored to you.

So what can you expect when working with an EMDR practitioner?

First, your therapist will walk you through the usual – your history, your concerns, your hopes for your therapy practice. They’ll work with you to figure out which memories you should tackle. For some, this might be more obvious than for others, so your mileage here will vary.

Once you’ve landed on a starting point, your therapist will help you identify the emotions, thoughts and beliefs you’ve associated with the memory. This is what you’ll focus on as you call up the event in question during reprocessing.

You’ll use one of several methods for bilateral stimulation, or BLS. Eye movements, like the ones Dr. Shapiro used in her initial discovery, are the most common. Using either a light bar or simply asking you to watch their finger, your therapist will have you focus on your troubling memory and the feelings associated with it as your eyes move back and forth.

If you’re unable to do this visual tracking (like me!), there are other options: bilateral taps that you can administer yourself, audio tones, even buzzers you hold in each hand.

You’ll report back to the therapist what other thoughts and associations came up for you during the brief period of stimulation, and your therapist will decide what to focus on for the next one.

You’ll work this way for sessions that typically last 50-90 minutes, following your therapist’s lead on which memories to think through and when(4).

EMDR therapy worked for me.

My therapist warned me that EMDR would leave me pretty tired, and that I’d likely experience everything from weird thoughts to revelations over the next few days. I smiled and nodded, not really able to imagine any of that.

She was right. Leaving my initial session, I felt both energized and exhausted. I felt heavy and burdened by a long, deep foray into some of my most disturbing experiences.

But my brain was busy doing what I can only describe as “jumping around.” (Clearly the technical term.) I found myself thinking about what felt like disparate, unconnected things, and that continued over the next couple of days. I had a tough time making heads or tails out of any of it.

Until suddenly, I could.

When it started to happen, it didn’t feel like a single light bulb going off. It felt like someone had turned on the entire lighting display at Home Depot all at once. Every lantern, every fixture was suddenly shining. Entire lines of thought were clear.

It was weird. It was eerie. It felt incredibly uncomfortable. There were tears.

But it was awesome.

Because it let me move forward in a process of healing that I’d barely even acknowledged I needed.

EMDR takes the pressure off.

The great thing about EMDR is that it takes the pressure off of you to fix yourself.

Listen, we all want to break toxic cycles and heal our hurt instead of dishing that hurt out to others. But anyone who has spent time on personal development or in therapy will understand how disheartening and overwhelming it can be. You feel like you’re staring up at a mountain that keeps getting bigger with all of the “I just need to’s” that pile up.

We spend so much time telling ourselves that “it could have been worse.” Beating ourselves up for not being able to “just get over” the things holding us back.

EMDR has taught me an invaluable lesson: your brain doesn’t care about your logic.

I realize that sounds like an oxymoron. But you can’t simply talk yourself out of your experiences. Your trauma got stored in ways beyond your control.

Blaming yourself isn’t an effective strategy for unlocking trauma and healing it.

Studies show, though, that EMDR is. And as this technique continues to gain traction, more studies will come. It excites me to think about all the ways the method will grow and evolve... All humans who will use it to take leaps and bounds toward the healthy, happy lives they’ve imagined for themselves.

I found my certified EMDR practitioner by searching therapists local to me on PsychologyToday.com.

I got lucky, because I’d never heard of EMDR before working with my therapist. But now you can’t say that!

I’m really excited for your journey. It starts with that first step.

Sources
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/science/francine-shapiro-dead.html
2. http://www.emdr.com/history-of-emdr/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3951033/
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6106867/