Useful Resources
Here you will find useful resources, blogs and publications about mental health, trauma and therapy.
What is EMDR therapy?
January 17, 2023
What is EMDR therapy?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It is a therapy used to help people recover from distressing events and the problems they have caused, like flashbacks, upsetting thoughts or images, depression or anxiety. In some cases the initial traumatic experience might have been pushed out of a person’s conscious awareness, but what remains are sensory fragments of the memory that intrude into the present causing an array of difficulties with emotions, behaviours, thoughts, relationships, functioning and body sensations.
EMDR is recognised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the World Health Organisation (WHO), which also recognises it as an effective treatment for children.
How does EMDR work?
When a person is involved in a traumatic event, they may feel overwhelmed and their brain may be unable to fully process what is going on. The memory of the event seems to become “stuck” so that it remains very intense and vivid. The person can re-experience what they saw, heard and smelt and the full force of the distress they felt whenever the memory comes to mind.
EMDR aims to help the brain “unstick” and reprocess the memory properly so that it is no longer so intense. It also helps to desensitise the person to the emotional impact of the memory, so that they can think about the event without experiencing such strong feelings.
It does this by asking the person to recall the traumatic event while they also move their eyes from side-to-side, hear a sound in each ear alternately, or feel a tap on each hand alternately. These side-to-side sensations seem to effectively stimulate the “stuck” processing system in the brain so that it can reprocess the information more like an ordinary memory, reducing its intensity.
The effect may be similar to what occurs naturally during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, when your eyes move rapidly from side to side as the brain processes the events of the day. Some research suggests that EMDR is effective because concentrating on another task whilst processing a distressing memory gives the brain more work to do. When the brain is not giving its full attention to processing the memory, it starts to become less vivid. This allows the person to distance themselves from it and begin to remember the event in a more helpful and manageable way.
EMDR is a complex therapeutic process that should always be delivered by properly trained therapists.
How effective is EMDR?
When a person’s mental health problems have their roots in a distressing life event, EMDR can be very effective very quickly. Studies have shown that EMDR can significantly decrease PTSD symptoms in just two or three sessions, and that the effect is long lasting (e.g. Ironson, Freund, Strauss, & Williams, 2002; Scheck, Schaeffer, & Gillette, 1998). People who have experienced several traumatic events, neglect or poor treatment as children usually need more sessions than this. There is a specific protocol for people who have experienced complex trauma. This involves using attachment focused EMDR alongside Internal Family Systems therapy. More information regarding this process can be provided during your therapy treatment.
Who can EMDR help?
EMDR is best known for its effectiveness in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is widely used by the NHS, charitable organisations and private sector, and the Ministry of Defence use EMDR to help service personnel with PTSD.
EMDR can also be used to help treat a variety of mental health problems like depression or anxiety, especially where a difficult life event has been involved. EMDR can be useful for people who have witnessed or experienced an event like a car accident, a violent crime, sexual or emotional abuse, bullying, a social humiliation or the sudden loss of a loved one, and are struggling to recover. It can also be effective for those who have experienced complex trauma, attachment difficulties, emotional dysregulation and impulsive/addictive behaviours.
EMDR is suitable for adults, young people and children. Younger children can find it difficult to fully engage with some types of talking therapies, so EMDR can be an effective, simpler alternative.
Complex trauma, emotional dysregulation and attachment difficulties
September 01, 2021
Complex trauma refers to children’s experiences of multiple traumatic events that occur within the caregiving system. This is the place that should be the source of safety, nurture and stability. When a child or adult has experienced complex trauma they have been exposed to ongoing occurrences of maltreatment, for example physical abuse, emotional abuse, witnessing domestic violence, sexual abuse, parental alcohol or substance misuse, physical or emotional neglect, loss of a parent, parental incarceration. These early life experiences can lead to emotional dysregulation, loss of a safe base, inability to recognise or respond to danger cues, which in turn makes someone more vulnerable to continued and future traumatic incidents in adolescents and adult life
(e.g., physical and sexual abuse, or community violence).
Emotional dysregulation is a common difficulty for people who have experienced complex trauma or have mental health difficulties. It includes emotional responses that are not easily regulated and can lead to impulsive, hurtful or unhealthy behaviours. Difficult emotional patterns are often a result of the experiences you have had or not had, sometimes these are routed in very early childhood when our brain is most receptive to our environment and caregivers. As a consequence, we might learn to suppress, avoid and push away our emotions, we might learn that the only way to get our needs met is to increase the intensity of our emotions, and we likely had limited caregivers to nurture, comfort, regulate and soothe our overwhelming emotions. Sometimes we may have had caregivers who were frightening and scary. Our experiences shape our brain, they shape our emotions and create a template by which we view ourselves, others and the world. For example, when we have a caregiver who is frightening and we are consistently frightened with no escape, we can learn that the world is unsafe, others cannot be trusted and we are not good enough or don't deserve love. This can then lead to a wide range of mental health problems, difficult relationship patterns (self-sabotaging), limited self-awareness, emotions that are out of control, rapid mood changes, self-criticism and shame, avoidance, lack of motivation, shut down/numbing out, self-sabotage, unhealthy behaviours, unhealthy relationships, negative and intrusive thoughts and low self worth.
In my experience these patterns, these imprints of unsafety and the dysfunctional emotional circuits can be healed and worked through. Sometimes this healing can be within a nurturing, safe, secure, and loving relationship or environment. However, often we cannot talk ourselves out of trauma and this is where psychological therapy can support you to repair your childhood wounds. This might help by allowing your protective parts to take a rest from their need to protect you from the past dangers/threats, allow you to live and feel safe in the present moment, to enable you to begin to develop a coherent narrative of your what has happened to you and build your core/present/authentic self that has compassion, confidence, curiosity, calmness, care and creativity).