Originally from at Dr. Nancy’s Podcast at LESS STRESSED LIFE with Christa Biegler
The Power of EMDR to Heal Past Pains and Trauma
with Dr. Nancy Mramor
Less Stressed Life : Upleveling Life, Health & Happiness
What if the pain of past traumas could be reprocessed so that they no longer have a traumatic effect on you every time you recall them? Sound like magic? Actually, it’s based in brain research on how we store our memories, both the painful traumatizing ones and the happy unforgettable ones! When you think of an old unhappy memory, it’s like taking a file out of a file drawer in the brain, then reading it and getting upset again before putting it right back where it was. But if you choose to think about it using the techniques of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, it can be but a minor memory that may not make you happy to reconsider, but certainly won’t retraumatize you. It may even change your thoughts about the memory to much healthier ones!
What is EMDR? The letters stand for Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing, a highly therapeutic treatment for trauma. After witnessing life-changing therapy sessions using EMDR for over 20 years, I was invited by Christa Biegler, author of the Less Stressed Life Podcast to talk about it! I couldn’t help but notice that the history of EMDR is reminiscent of the discoveries of Albert Einstein and Sir Issac Newton, which occurred through inspiration and observation.
Originally, a compassionate and talented therapist by the name of Dr. Francine Shapiro noticed that when people were powerfully processing difficult memories that their eyes would shift from left to right as they were recalling and successfully healing past trauma. Her astute observations led to further study and research on how the alternating eye movements created access to the whole brain. With such whole brain stimulation, memories were not simply being recalled, which can retraumatize, but were actually being healed. She developed the original process of EMDR using left to right tracking of the eyes. Later, it was found that using alternating tapping sounds in the ears, or hand tappers that alternately tapped left and right in the hands produced the same effect. The bilateral stimulation allowed for deep reprocessing with the goal of lifting the heavy emotional charge of past traumatic memories from the brain. After many research studies, some that I participated in at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Department of Integrative Medicine, the American Psychological Association approved the treatment, allowing for thousands of people to be unbound from past trauma that was previously running their lives. Why was this so important? For people like you, but especially useful for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, those with COVID trauma or racial incidents that left scars. Now is a very good time for EMDR.
If you had a single trauma, it may be treatable in a single session, often a session that is longer than the traditional one hour of therapy. For more long-term trauma, you can take an EMDR “Intensive” in which you work with a therapist daily until the trauma is resolved or can use EMDR in individual therapy until the trauma feels released. The protocol for treatment will get you there! Now, EMDR is even being used with tapping therapies, for additional impact.
To find an EMDR therapist in your area, contact EMDRIA at www.emdria.org