Marriage and Family Therapist, LMFT, LCSW, LPCC, ACSW, APCC, AMFT
At CTFT we treat trauma primarily with EMDR. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a form of therapy that helps people heal from trauma or other distressing life experiences. EMDR therapy has been extensively researched and has demonstrated effectiveness for trauma. The research also shows that is it much more than a treatment for PTSD and can treat a wide variety of other disorders.
How does EMDR work?
Our brains have a natural way to recover from traumatic memories and events. This process involves communication between the amygdala (the alarm signal for stressful events), the hippocampus (which assists with learning, including memories about safety and danger) and the prefrontal cortex (which analyzes and controls behavior and emotion). Stress responses are part of our natural fight, flight, or freeze instincts. When distress from a disturbing event remains, the upsetting images, thoughts, and emotions may create feelings of overwhelm of being back in that moment or of being frozen in time. EMDR therapy helps the brain process these memories and allows normal healing to resume. The experience is still remembered but the fight, flight, or freeze response is resolved.
EMDR a powerful technique that helps people to identify negative beliefs they have about themselves and to replace them with more balanced, truthful or adaptive beliefs about themselves and the world they live in. EMDR uses eye movements, tapping, or sound as bilateral stimulation to help the brain to reactive it’s natural healing process. For many clients, after completing EMDR, when they remember the distressing life experience, they no longer have the emotional response or negative belief associated with that particular memory.
Can children and teens benefit from EMDR Therapy?
Yes! EMDR is appropriate for all ages, adults, teens and children. When treating a child or a teen, our therapists will use language that is appropriate for the age. We incorporate art, picture books and a sand tray as needed. For children we call it, “Eyes Moving to Digest and Recover” (Ana M. Gomez). We explain it like this, when your brain is full of bad memories or experiences, it needs to digest those memories, just like your stomach digests food. It breaks the memories down into smaller pieces and keeps what is good and healthy for you and gets rid of what is bad for you.