GET PAST YOUR PAST
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GET PAST YOUR PAST ✦
EMDR Therapist
Online therapy in Minneapolis, MN and Arizona.
Do you feel it’s almost impossible to heal from your past?
Maybe you are starting to notice that you can’t outrun your past. As much as you try to ignore your past or shove it down, it just keeps popping back up. You realize you are spending more and more time trying not to think about your past but it’s like that pesky fly that won’t leave you alone. You’re starting to feel the ramifications of this old wound that won’t heal.
You may be…
Seeing impacts in your relationships.
Feeling like your experiences are too painful to speak out loud.
Struggling to concentrate or focus.
Fighting to stay afloat at school or work.
Overthinking everything.
Seeing an increase in your depression or anxiety.
So overwhelmed you’re almost frozen in place.
You have tried everything but it’s just not helping the way you thought it would.
About Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
01 What is EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Basically, EMDR therapy is a specialized form of psychotherapy that taps into the power of your brain and its own ability to heal from your painful past.
To get technical, EMDR is an 8 phase model that works to identify the core issue or unprocessed trauma, which allows to heal from the traumatic issue.
02 What can I expect from EMDR
EMDR will help you feel better by creating lasting change. EMDR therapy does not require you to talk about your painful past in order to heal from it. It’s not just focused on making changes to your thoughts and behaviors. We work to get to the root of these challenges to heal them at the source.
03 How does EMDR work
EMDR Therapy allows you to reprocess traumatic issues from the inside, out.
Think of your issue as a nasty rusted nail. What is going to happen if you just slap a band-aid on it and hope for the best? Yeah, it’s probably going to get infected and cause a lot of other issues. It’s the same thing with your mental health. We first must take the nail out, clean the area so it doesn’t get infected and then get your preventative medication. When it comes to your mental health, we are taking the issue out at the root of the cause (the nail.) We will then make sure to get any left over memories, so it doesn’t get infected (clean up.) and the address any other concerns surrounding this issue (preventative medication.)
04 What are the benefits of EMDR
You can experience emotional healing and wholeness, build upon your current strengths, learn coping skills to help you manage the shit life throws at you, process difficult memories and emotions, create a space of understanding and love for yourself, no longer let your past define who you are and feel empowered.
What is Adaptive Information Processing in EMDR?
It describers how the brain processes and stores memories, It recognizes that both positive and negative experiences shape our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Disturbing experiences have a tendency to get stuck and then new disturbing experiences grow with it.
For example. think of new experiences as a car that is going over a bridge. Our normal experiences go right over the bridge from point A to point B without any problems. However, when our traumatic experiences try to cross the bridge to get from point A to B, the bridge collapses half way there and gets stuck. Now, the experience and the emotions and negative thoughts associated with it (ie: fear, hurt, shame, guilt or I’m not worthless, I’m broken) have nowhere to go. As we start having new experiences (other cars) with similar negative thoughts and emotions, those cars can’t cross the bridge because it’s collapsed. Now traffic (new negative experiences) are getting really backed up with nowhere to go but wait until the bridge gets reconnected. Next comes a car not paying much attention to the backed up traffic and doesn’t stop in time, and ends up hitting the car in front of them. Therefore starting a chain reaction all the way up to the where the original car (original experience) is waiting for the bridge to be built. Basically, anytime you have a new negative experience in the present moment with similar thoughts or emotions to the original experience, your brain is connecting all of those similar experiences you’ve had until it reaches the original experience. So you’re not just feeling the emotions and thoughts of today’s experience but the emotions and thoughts of all of those similar experiences back to original experience. It’s no wonder we start to feel overwhelmed when we get trigger by things.
EMDR therapy works to rebuild that bridge so the first car (experience) can get from point A to B and then all of the rest of the cars (experiences) can as well. You won’t lose these memories but they will no longer hold the same control over you, they are just a normal car going from point A to point B, without any issues.
Frequently Asked Questions
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EMDR Therapy allows you to reprocess traumatic issues from the inside, out. If you want to learn more about the neurobiological aspects of how EMDR affects the brain, please click here.
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EMDR is an 8 phase model that starts from the initial session.
Phase 1: Starts with getting to know you better and learn more about you as a human being. We will begin to identity some of the painful experiences you have had in your life and how they affect you.
Phase 2: Provides you with ample resources and skills to help you feel better on a day-to-day basis. You’re going to be dealing with a lot of shit and I want you to feel confident in your ability to carry on like “business as usual” while working through your difficult experiences.
Phase 3: We identify the exact experience you want to focus on in EMDR.
Phase 4: The desensitization phase is the phase that most people associate with EMDR. It’s where we use the eye movements to help you work through your painful experience.
Phase 5-8: We make sure that you don’t have any lingering disturbances in your mind or your body. You should feel pretty neutral about the experience we worked through.
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EMDR helps to bridge both sides of your brain, which allows for your brain to tap into its innate healing properties. Everything we do together is always at your own pace; you can share as much or as little as you would like during this process. You’re in control of your own healing. It allows a person to remember a painful memory, without overwhelming and intense emotions that you’re used to.
You wouldn’t leave a splinter of cactus you got in your leg while you were hiking because it will fester and cause an even larger problem. The same goes for our painful experiences, they cause an imbalance in our life. This imbalance if not healed at the source, produces painful and intense emotions that cause suffering.
EMDR won’t remove these memories but it will alleviate the pain and suffering you have been experiencing. We will implement ways for you to feel less daily stress and anxiety by creating a solid foundation of new coping strategies before we identify the root issue to heal you from the inside, out.
EMDR sessions can sometimes be intense but as a part of this work, I will help you with ways to contain the work you’re doing in therapy so you can still function on a daily basis.
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The activation of one side of your body before moving to the other side of your body. Therefore, activating one hemisphere of your brain before moving to the other side and activating that side of your brain. Bilateral simulation in session can include tactile (buzzies), auditory (music) and/or visual (light bars.) There are also plenty of examples of bilateral stimulation in your daily life, including but not limited to, walking, running, swimming, watching sports like tennis, basketball or pickleball.
Another interesting thing about bilateral stimulation is, when done really slow, it can be used as a way to regulate your body. Think about how calming rocking can be for you or even babies. Can you think of any other examples of ways you might use bilateral simulation to help calm yourself in your daily life?
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Triggers can be a person, place, thing, situation or environment that causes a strong emotional or physical reaction. Sometimes, it can’ include reliving traumatic events.
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The EMDRIA website is a great place to find more information on EMDR.
Another great resource is Francine Shapiro’s Getting Past Your Past.Where can I learn more about EMDR Therapy?