Trauma is one of the many things that most people wouldn’t wish to experience in their lives.
However, some things are inevitable, and such instances can happen despite one’s efforts.
Due to stressful and alarming situations, the human brain formulates certain ways to handle overwhelming emotions, which usually take the form of defense mechanisms and trauma.
Some effects of trauma can last a lifetime; worse, some don’t even realize they already have it.
To handle signs of trauma better, you may consider undergoing therapies, counseling, and psychological treatments.
Also, you can seek help from reliable online sources like renuyoutulsa.com or other dependable sites to find solutions to your concerns.
To have a better understanding of this matter, continue reading this article.
EDMR Therapy And Trauma: Things To Know
While some people may not know it, trauma is a person’s emotional response to painful and disconcerting events.
It could also be considered as a person’s initial response to threatening occurrences that affect their ability to cope.
People struggling with trauma experience various adverse effects on their physical, mental, emotional, social, and psychological aspects.
When dealing with trauma, a person may feel extreme helplessness, lack of ability to perform daily activities that they normally do, and suffer from a series of emotional and psychological breakdowns.
Some of them may also have a hard time managing their emotions and behavior.
To efficiently handle trauma, there are various alternatives you can consider, including undergoing psychological therapies, counseling, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.
That said, before you undertake EMDR therapy, here are a few things you need to know and how it can help you:
1. Determines The Causes
EMDR therapy is a psychotherapy treatment thought to alleviate psychological stress.
Some experts find this effective, especially for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other forms of trauma.
For the beginning of the phase, your therapist will develop a treatment plan for you.
They will also need your history, and they will ask questions like your reasons for coming or the causes of your emotional stress.
Your therapist asks you these questions to know what needs more attention during the EMDR process.
After that, your therapist will make you think of a vivid image that’s related to the target memory.
You will be asked to emphasize the negative thoughts you have of yourself.
In addition to that, this is where you will identify the related emotions and physical sensations stimulated after a particular event.
2. Provides Treatment Options
For the second phase, your therapist will explain what you can expect during the treatment.
Your therapist will teach you different relaxation and stress management techniques to handle emotional distress.
This is a vital part of the process since this can help you calm yourself throughout or after sessions.
The treatment usually lasts for about 12 sessions in 8 different phases.
During the process, you have the freedom not to give a very detailed description about your disturbing or distressing memories.
You can just discuss the topic your therapist would like to know about without going too far into the details.
3. Advances Bilateral Stimulation
This is the phase where your therapist will use EMDR techniques while you are focusing on the image or memory, negative thought, and body sensation.
Your therapist will make you do bilateral simulation that involve taps, eye movements, or auditory tones simultaneously.
Your therapist may tap you knees left and right alternatively or use headphones to send the auditory tones.
Take note that the techniques in this phase may vary depending on the client.
4. Alleviates Emotional Distress
After the simulation, your therapist will now instruct you to let your mind go blank. You will be asked to focus on whatever comes to your mind—be it a memory, image, or thought.
If you have problems progressing, your therapist will help you get back and decide whether you need to refocus on that targeted memory or not.
When your distress over the targeted memory has faded, you will be guided by your therapist on replacing that negative thought with a positive one.
5. Promotes Faster Recovery
Aside from relieving emotional distress and replacing traumatic images with positive ones, experts also believe EMDR therapy could help people monitor their progress and promote faster recovery for patients.
Particularly, it could help patients utilize different techniques to avoid negative thoughts for better results.
EMDR may help you reduce the level of distress you feel when you think of that memory.
It is because during the therapy, your therapist will help you focus on two things (focusing on one memory or image while doing bilateral simulation), thus losing the intensity of emotions that you feel.
It should help make people face their trauma but not allowing them to feel the distress when they think of it alone.
Doing this over and over again is thought to help make the distress fade over time.
Final Thoughts
Many people continually suffer from different forms of trauma.
And the effects can show in different ways, whether internal or external.
While it might be difficult to address this condition, it’s still best to seek help to better manage your life.
Fortunately, there are various alternatives you can consider for this aspect, including EMDR therapy and other psychological treatments.
EMDR therapy might be a great help in overcoming one’s trauma.
But first, you must still seek a psychologist or psychiatrist since they’re the ones who can help you recover from your trauma more effectively.