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September 09 2023

What Conditions and Problems Does EMDR Treat? A Beginner’s Guide

Author AM Nelson Categories EMDR, Pyschology, Trauma

Understanding EMDR Treatment

When it comes to seeking effective mental health treatment, it’s essential to know your options. One lesser-known but highly effective therapy is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). While EMDR might sound complicated, it’s a versatile treatment method that can address a wide range of conditions and problems. In this beginner’s guide, we’ll explore what EMDR is and delve into the various conditions it can effectively treat.

EMDR for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

One of the most well-known uses of EMDR treatment is for individuals struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD can develop after experiencing traumatic events, such as accidents, abuse, combat, or natural disasters. People with PTSD often suffer from flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety related to their traumatic experiences.

EMDR helps individuals process and heal from these traumatic memories by using a structured approach. During EMDR therapy, a trained therapist guides patients through a series of bilateral stimulation techniques, such as following the therapist’s finger movements with their eyes. This process helps the brain reprocess traumatic memories, reducing their emotional intensity and allowing patients to regain control over their lives.

EMDR for Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health conditions worldwide. EMDR treatment has shown promising results in alleviating symptoms of various anxiety disorders, including:

  • Generalized Anxiety Disorder: People with generalized anxiety disorder often experience excessive worry and fear about everyday situations. EMDR can help them process the underlying causes of their anxiety.
  • Panic Disorder: Individuals with panic disorder have sudden and intense episodes of fear, known as panic attacks. EMDR can assist in identifying and addressing the triggers behind these episodes.
  • Phobias: Whether it’s a fear of flying, spiders, or heights, phobias can be debilitating. EMDR can be used to desensitize individuals to their specific phobias.
  • Social Anxiety/Phobia: EMDR can help those who struggle with social anxiety by addressing the root causes of their fears and helping them build confidence in social situations.

EMDR for Depression Disorders

Depression can manifest in various forms, and EMDR is a valuable tool in treating different types of depression, including:

  • Major Depressive Disorder: EMDR helps individuals with major depressive disorder explore the underlying issues contributing to their depression and develop coping strategies.
  • Persistent Depressive Disorder: Also known as dysthymia, this form of depression is characterized by chronic low mood. EMDR can help individuals identify and address long-standing emotional patterns.
  • Illness-Related Depression: Coping with chronic illness can lead to depressive symptoms. EMDR can assist in processing the emotional impact of illness.

EMDR for Dissociative Disorders

Dissociative disorders involve a disconnection between one’s thoughts, identity, consciousness, and memory. EMDR has been applied successfully to treat:

  • Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or Amnesia: DID involves the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states, each with its own way of perceiving the world. EMDR can help individuals integrate these identities and heal from past traumas.
  • Depersonalization or Derealization Disorder: Individuals with these disorders often feel detached from themselves or their surroundings. EMDR can assist in reconnecting them to their sense of self and reality.

EMDR for Eating Disorders

Eating disorders can have devastating physical and psychological consequences. EMDR has been used in the treatment of:

  • Anorexia Nervosa: EMDR can help individuals address the underlying issues related to body image and self-esteem that contribute to this condition.
  • Bulimia Nervosa: EMDR can assist individuals in managing the impulses and emotional triggers that lead to binge-eating and purging behaviors.
  • Binge-Eating Disorder: EMDR can help individuals gain insight into the emotional factors driving their binge-eating episodes and develop healthier coping mechanisms.

EMDR for Gender Dysphoria

Gender dysphoria occurs when an individual’s gender identity doesn’t align with their assigned gender at birth. EMDR can be used to help individuals explore their feelings, experiences, and challenges related to gender identity.

EMDR for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders (OCD)

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is characterized by intrusive, distressing thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions). EMDR can assist individuals in identifying and reducing the anxiety associated with these thoughts and behaviors, promoting healthier coping mechanisms.

EMDR for Personality Disorders

Personality disorders can profoundly affect a person’s thoughts, emotions, and relationships. EMDR has shown promise in treating:

  • Borderline Personality Disorder: EMDR can help individuals with borderline personality disorder manage their intense emotions and unstable relationships by addressing past traumas.
  • Avoidant Personality Disorder: Individuals with this disorder often experience extreme social anxiety. EMDR can assist in addressing the underlying causes of this anxiety.
  • Antisocial Personality Disorder: While EMDR may not treat the core traits of this disorder, it can help individuals address trauma and improve their overall well-being.

EMDR for Trauma Disorders

In addition to PTSD, EMDR can effectively treat other trauma-related disorders, including:

  • Acute Stress Disorder: Similar to PTSD, acute stress disorder can develop after a traumatic event. EMDR helps individuals process these experiences, preventing long-term distress.
  • Adjustment Disorder: EMDR can assist individuals in coping with major life changes, such as job loss or divorce, by helping them process the associated emotions and adapt more effectively.

EMDR Can Be a Game-Changer

In conclusion, EMDR treatment is a versatile and highly effective approach for addressing a wide range of mental health conditions and problems. Whether you’re struggling with trauma, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, or personality issues, EMDR offers hope and healing. It’s important to remember that EMDR is most effective when administered by a trained and licensed therapist. If you or someone you know is dealing with any of the conditions mentioned in this guide, consider discussing EMDR treatment with a mental health professional.

EMDR treatment can be a game-changer, providing a path to recovery, emotional well-being, and a brighter future.

December 12 2019

Dealing With the Holidays: Advice Can Make Anxiety Worse

Author AM Nelson Categories EMDR

The Holidays can be a time of joy and generosity, or it can exacerbate the dread and worry within us and challenge mental health. Along with the extra activities, travel, and spending, comes the additional social contact that can strike fear in the hearts of the anxious ones. In addition, those well-meaning friends and family members who attempt to fix us, advise us, and tell us what worked for themselves. Much of the advice for a case of “the nerves” can make anxiety disorders flare like the lights on a Christmas tree in flames (such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, or Phobias).

So these well meaning folks blow it! If someone tells you they are anxious, pause before you repeat what your mother has advised you to do…it may be more than a little bit of the jitters. If you have anxiety and have questioned why this “sound” advice hasn’t made a meaningful improvement, you are not alone. Remember, not everything will work for every person. Anxiety treatment is individualized and different people experience the fear and worry of anxiety in different ways. If you have struggled with anxiety, remember that psychotherapy is effective and a gold standard of care. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or EMDR therapy can be helpful when working with a licensed mental health therapist.

Tip 1: Ignore It and It Will Go Away

Unlike that bratty three year old on the train, ignoring anxiety will not make it go away. In fact, a big part of anxiety can be avoidance, which is a kind of ignoring. It takes a lot of energy to “not” think, to “not” do something, or to pretend that everything is fine…in the middle of experiencing anxiety or even a panic attack. Part of anxiety therapy treatment is to acknowledge the physical sensations (such as sweaty palms, and rapid heartbeat), identify thoughts (such as self-defeating self-talk), label emotions (such as fear or anger), and link social or situational triggers (such as people, places, or things) that contribute to the escalation of anxiety. Continued ignoring and avoidance of situations, thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations can contribute to increased anxiety and reduced overall ability to engage in life.

Tip 2: Be like the Nike slogan, and Just Do It!

Frequently difficult social or emotional situations are endured with great distress when a person has an anxiety disorder. While at times it might be required to endure the agony for safety or practical reasons, generally it is not helpful or healthy to continue the activation of your flight-or-fight system without remedy or repair. The more frequently a person practices a state of being, the better they get at it, and being in a chronically state is distress is simply terrible for all aspects of your health. Enduring an anxious event without any additional tools or skills can feed and reinforce the fear.

Tip 3: Try To Distract Yourself

Emotions are there for a reason, and distraction invalidates what your senses and being are trying to get across to you. Distraction is similar to ignoring, except that space is filled with a behavior or activity. This can lead to ongoing problems, such as binge TV watching, “nervous” habits, and substance problems, among others. Once the distraction is over, the anxiety is waiting for you, something with greater intensity. It may be a painful or difficult experience to investigate situations or experiences that are the root emotions, but resolution will reduce anxiety.

TIp 4: What’s The Worst That Can Happen?

Anxiety is fear and avoidance based, and can spark catastrophic thinking which further strengthens fear and worry. Asking a person who is suffering from anxiety this question, can actually increase anxiety as the person absolutely can imagine terrible outcomes, but doesn’t have enough positive coping skills or tools to manage their current situation. So it becomes like a snake eating its own tail, catastrophic thinking feeding anxiety which feeds more catastrophic thinking.

If you have anxiety that you haven’t been able to deal with on your own, visit a psychotherapist who is experienced and knowledgeable in reducing anxiety. Psychotherapy for anxiety can help reduce intrusive thoughts, worries, everyday fears, and that sense of internal nerves gone haywire. Effective treatments include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and a psychotherapist can make a recommendation if seeing your physician may be a good idea as well.

October 10 2019

Using EMDR for Trauma Therapy

Author AM Nelson Categories EMDR, Therapy, Trauma

EMDR Trauma Therapy

An effective and evidence-based treatment for trauma experiences is EMDR therapy. Life gives us ups and downs, and typically we are able to cope with our experiences. At times, a negative experience will occur that is outside our ability to cope. Or a series of negative events may occur that pile up and overwhelm our abilities. At times in life, we can become wounded.
An effective treatment for trauma is EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). EMDR trauma therapy can assist you in exploring a past hurt or trauma in a safe environment, assisted by a licensed and certified EMDR therapist. EMDR therapy can help you increase coping, understanding, and move forward from negative experience. EMDR trauma therapy is generally faster than other forms of psychotherapy trauma treatment.

What is Trauma?

What qualifies as “trauma” can be difficult to determine since the term is frequently used in casual conversation, but not always applied to negative life experiences. Trauma can take the form of distinct negative experiences that are highly charged (emotionally, physically, or mentally). Trauma can take the form of consistent negative messages that add up over time (such as negative childhood relationships or isolation). These negative experiences can linger in our minds, nightmares, behaviors, relationships, or future activities. Not every bad experience is a trauma, but living with trauma can feel like living in a shadow or re-experiencing the worst parts of the past.

Does Trauma Mean I am Crazy?

Having difficulty coping does not mean that you are crazy. The symptoms of PTSD or trauma may be very disturbing and you may not feel like yourself. People sometimes wonder why they can’t just “get over it,” or feel that they are “overreacting” since the dangerous or negative experience is over. The difficulty with trauma is that our brains don’t process these events as it does regular events, and the feelings, sensations, and perceptions can feel like they are stuck in limbo…playing over and over.
These past experiences continue to place pressure and influence (unwanted) on the present. Nightmares, physical arousal such as being on guard, avoiding people or places that resemble a previous bad event, having panic attacks, experiencing flashbacks…these are a few of the symptoms that can contribute to a person feeling crazy.
You are not crazy. You probably need some assistance to help make sense of a trauma that has overwhelmed your current coping ability. You might be diagnosed with PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) or an anxiety disorder; this still does not mean that you are crazy. There is help and treatment for trauma: both the big “T” traumas, and help for the small “t” traumas. EMDR trauma therapy can help you reprocess negative events and allow these feelings, sensations, and perceptions to become unstuck.

EMDR Trauma Therapy as Wound Care

If you had a splinter in your hand, you would have the fragment removed before expecting the skin to heal. If the foreign object was left within the hand, infection, swelling, or scar tissue would likely form. The wound may reopen and continue to be problematic.

In a similar way to a physical cut, trauma can be a splinter that hampers proper healing and can impair regular functioning. EMDR trauma therapy can assist in reprocessing the negative trauma which can act like removing the splinter, prior to setting a wound to heal.

It is not crazy to seek help for a physical wound. It is not crazy to seek help for an emotional or mental wound. If trauma symptoms or past events are impairing your ability to live your life, it is possible that EMDR therapy may be beneficial for you. A licensed and certified EMDR therapist can assist you in reprocessing the past to help you heal from trauma.

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