EMDR Therapy — The Body Mind Center

What Is EMDR Therapy?

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy is a highly effective treatment used to help people heal from trauma and recover from adverse life experiences, as well as upsetting events. Using bilateral stimulation in the form of audio, visual and/or tapping techniques, EMDR Therapy helps the brain rewire so that trauma and other forms of stuck learning, like anxiety, can be cleared, thereby bringing integration and alignment to the thinking, feeling and body parts of the brain.

EMDR Therapy was developed in the late eighties by a psychologist named Francine Shapiro after she first observed and then became curious about how eye movements seemed to reduce disturbing thoughts, feelings and sensations. Since then, decades of research, including numerous randomized controlled studies as well as meta-analyses, have clearly demonstrated EMDR Therapy's effectiveness. Though we continue to learn more about why our brains respond so well to EMDR Therapy, its efficiency and effectiveness make it a prominent method of psychotherapy. EMDR Therapy is embraced by scientific, medical, and mental health communities alike who endorse it as an approach for treating PTSD, psychiatric disorders and addictive behaviors.

At The Body Mind Center, EMDR Therapy is used to help individuals struggling with a wide range of symptoms and behaviors. From anxiety to dissociation to chronic pain to stress associated with trauma, we've used EMDR Therapy to help our community members rewire their brains, regulate their emotions and live a life free from the shadows of their past.

What Is The Mind-Body Connection?

Scientific research has established the problematic ways in which the mind and body store stress, trauma and high intensity (or toxic stress) events. By studying Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), scientists and medical professionals have determined that the degree and quantity of stress events experienced in childhood as well as in one's community, directly correlates with pain, disease, and mental illness experienced later in life.

Disturbing life experiences live on inside of us, and as a result, our physiology is subconsciously transformed, leaving us susceptible to chronic pain and illness. In addition, forms of “stuck learning," which can result from adulthood trauma or present as negative belief patterns, can cause a type of physical and/or emotional "congestion," which also needs to be cleared.

The good news is our bodies have an instinct to heal, not only from physical injury but also from emotional and mental injury. And just as we seek the help of a doctor to assist with major bodily injuries that cannot heal on their own, a well-trained, trauma informed therapist will assist in healing "congestion" in our brain and body systems left behind by exposure to traumatic, toxic, or high intensity stress events. The key is to work with therapists who are well trained and have years of experience in providing neuro-somatic therapy approaches like EMDR and other psychotherapies that include the body mind, not just the thinking and feeling minds.

How Does EMDR Work?

At The Body Mind Center, we explain the process of EMDR therapy using the three information processing "channels" of the brain—the thinking channel, the feeling channel, and the body channel. Each "channel" corresponds with specific areas of the brain. Talk therapies are a "top-down" approach and focus on the brain's thinking and feeling channels, whereas EMDR and Somatic Psychotherapies (like Sensorimotor Psychotherapy) are "bottom up" approaches because they include the body channel.

Long after traumatic, toxic, and high stress events are over, the pain, stress, and trauma of those events creates a "congestion" in our feeling and body channels that can hijack, our thinking channel. The end result is we don't feel fully in control or healed from what happened to us and it haunts us.

Because EMDR Therapy is a "bottom-up" approach it tends to be more effective than "top-down" approaches for treating trauma and other forms of stuck learning because it focuses on the root cause of the problem, not just the symptoms. "Unlike Trauma Informed CBT, EMDR Therapy does not involve detailed descriptions of the event, direct challenging of beliefs, extended exposure, or homework.”

Although what happened to you cannot be changed, EMDR Therapy can change how it's stored in your brain and body. After EMDR Therapy at The Body Mind Center the trauma or problem will no longer hijack your system. What happened to you will become factual, without the emotional and/or visceral effects that it once had on you.

The eight stages of EMDR treatment are: 1) discovery and treatment planning, 2) preparation, 3) assessment, 4) desensitization, 5) installation, 6) body scan, 7) closure, and 8) reevaluation. Using a specific image or event, an EMDR therapist will walk you through the steps to "target" the traumatic or adverse experience. From there, bilateral stimulation in the form of rapid eye movement therapy, sounds, or taps will begin and the brain begins the process of rewiring thoughts, feelings and associations stemming from or related to the adverse experience. Over time, negative thoughts, feelings and body sensations will be cleared, reducing the discomfort associated with recalling the memory.

How Can EMDR Help?

At The Body Mind Center, we believe you are the expert on you and that therapists are simply there to teach and guide you where your brain and body naturally want to go. We provide a toolkit for removing obstacles during the process of healing and work as guides during EMDR treatment. Our goal is to help reduce the emotional and visceral intensity that are the result of trauma and other forms of stuck learning, like anxiety, phobias, and addictive behaviors.

While any number of life experiences or events may cause an individual to seek our services, we find that many clients come to us with negative belief patterns about themselves. Using EMDR, our clients begin to have clarity that these negative or self-sabotaging beliefs are not true but are rather the consequences of bad experiences they've endured. Working through the various stages of treatment, clients replace negative thinking patterns with positive ones and gain confidence as the power of painful thoughts and experiences diminish.

Since 2011, The Body Mind Center has used EMDR Therapy and other neuro-somatic methods to help members of the Maryland community reprocess traumatic memories, adverse life experiences and find relief from their pain. Every EMDR Therapist at The Body Mind Center received their EMDR training from a trainer who is authorized/approved by the EMDR International Association (EMDRIA), the organization that oversees the training and certification of EMDR Therapists. Some of our therapists are even taking the next steps toward becoming EMDRIA Consultants themselves so they can provide support to newly trained therapists and/or therapists who are professionally ready to take on the rigorous process of certification.

Don’t Let Trauma Or Other Forms of Stuck Learning Dictate Your Life

Trauma and other adverse life experiences don't have to define or limit your life. Whether you seek EMDR treatment on its own or as a form of adjunctive therapy, The Body Mind Center can help you live with fewer triggers and have emotional peace of mind.

We are humbled and honored to have the ability to help our clients with the sacred work of accessing and embracing their Inner Healer. We look forward to hearing from you. If you are struggling with anxiety, panic, chronic pain, PTSD, or if you are a survivor of childhood abuse or violent crime, EMDR Therapy at The Body Mind Center can help. For a free, 15-minute consultation, please call 410-530-9538 or go to the contact page to learn more about our team and what we can do for you.