Understanding and Healing with EMDR: A Path to Peace and Freedom
Written by Michelle Robertson, APC
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Do you ever notice your nervous system responding at a higher level than the given situation may warrant? For example, your boss asks for your opinion during a work meeting, and you think your opinion is valuable, but you are flooded with fear at the thought of expressing it. Perhaps you notice a pattern of behaviors that you just can’t stop repeating: whether that is isolating yourself from social situations or consistently choosing the “wrong” person to date - only to stay with them despite their fluttering red flags. It could be that you have maladaptively stored experiences. The good news is that EMDR can help you process those memories while gaining a sense of peace and calm in the world.
Wouldn't you like to live the life God planned for you to live instead of living it in survival mode?
If you have recently researched counselors or are currently working with one, then you have likely heard the term EMDR. And, you may be wondering what it is and how it can help you. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is a highly effective therapy for many mental health challenges including but not limited to anxiety, depression, self-esteem, chronic pain, and PTSD. In fact, the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs endorses EMDR as one of its best practices in assisting combat veterans. But you don’t have to be diagnosed with PTSD or have survived a “Big T” trauma to reap the benefits of this excellent therapy.
When I was first learning about EMDR in order to practice it in my counseling office, it helped me to understand the framework. So before diving into the details of this treatment, I will introduce the theory behind it known as the Adaptive Information Processing Model or AIP. In a nutshell, our memory networks are the foundation of our mental well being and the symptoms that show how we miss the mark.
The Adaptive Information Processing Model or AIP
I’d like you to think of your brain and nervous system as the processor and storage area of the multitude of experiences you have in your lifetime. And I’d like you to think of each experience as a stored memory. Every experience, whether good or bad, is ideally processed and filed in your adaptive memory network. When you consider the word adaptive, what comes to your mind? I like to think of adapting as living life on life’s terms, or living as though I really trust God! We want to feel confident that our opinions at work will bring value to our colleagues and not feel threatened to share them. We want to RSVP with a “yes” to that party invite despite not knowing anyone because that’s the way we actually get to know people. And we want to pay attention to red flags in relationships while feeling empowered to set and maintain boundaries. That’s living a healthy life and adapting to the changes we have no control over. Perhaps we can respond rather than react because we have gained wisdom and confidence in how to navigate our journey through our past adaptively stored experiences.
However, there are times when our experiences fail to process adaptively. By continuing on the theme of our nervous system being the processor and storage area of our experiences, consider each memory as an individual file in your brain. In this case, a failure to process would render the file without a proper location to store it. It would get stuck in your nervous system like a corrupted file on your computer. And we all know how corrupted files can impact the operations of our computers!
How do experiences get stuck?
How do experiences get stuck? If you are in a state of heightened arousal then your brain simply isn’t working at full capacity. If you experience an adverse event, you are likely in fight or flight mode at the time. This could be a traumatic experience like sexual assault, the witnessing of a fatal accident, or military combat. This could also be something much more mild like forgetting your lines in the school play or being rejected by someone you really like. Certainly, forgetting your lines in the school play doesn’t seem mild when you’re in that moment nor does being rejected. But, if those experiences were adaptively processed then you could gain wisdom and perspective from them. If your brain wasn’t working at full capacity during the event, then you would fail to get the full picture. There’s missing data, so to speak. As such, your brain doesn’t know where that file belongs, and so it gets stuck.
You are probably wondering about the impact of a maladaptively stored memory. Our five senses, our thoughts, our emotions, the sensations in our body, and our beliefs - those are all associated with every memory. Let’s use the example of forgetting the lines in a school play and that it failed to adaptively process. Whatever we saw, heard, smelled, touched, thought about, emotionally felt, and what we believed are each elements of this experience. And so, if any one of those elements occurs in the future, the nervous system may become activated the same way it did the day the lines of the play were forgotten. Fast forward to a work meeting many years later when your boss asks for your opinion and immediately you see the same blank faces waiting for you to speak, feel the same level of discomfort and the same rapid rhythm of your heart beat, along with the belief of “I’m incompetent!” as you did in the school play. Your nervous system freezes exactly the way it did on that dreadful day in school when you forgot your lines.
EMDR helps process stuck memories
The work you do with a therapist through EMDR can give you a new perspective through processing your stuck memories. It can help you see the full picture and generate new insights as those memories get stored in their proper directory. Does EMDR delete anything? Absolutely not! But it does neutralize the physiological disturbance of target memories and helps you reintegrate them with similarly themed experiences so they become adaptive.
I have had the honor of using EMDR protocols to assist clients in processing various target memories. Some of which were life-threatening, deep wounds from childhood, incidents of bullying, mistakes made in school or work. Some were experiences that could mimic a Hollywood movie production, and some would seem to the outside observer to be but a mere blip on the radar. None of the specific experiences are the same; however, all of the stuck memories made a lasting negative impact…until they were processed. I have been the one on the couch guided by EMDR to successfully reintegrate my stuck memories; I have witnessed the value it has brought to others and experienced the benefit of EMDR myself.
After witnessing the successful processing of clients’ target memories I have heard them say:
“It’s like the image in my mind when I think about that memory has faded.”
“It’s there, but it doesn’t give me heart-palpitations like it used to.”
“It’s over!”
“They were just kids, they didn’t know how much it hurt me.”
“It’s like I can see the whole thing now.”
“The memory is less vivid for me.”
“I’ve noticed I’m less fearful about things now.”
“I DO belong!”
Brief History and Evidence Base
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or EMDR was discovered in 1987 by the late psychologist, Francine Shapiro. She was walking while thinking about something heavy and she noticed as she was moving her eyes back and forth that she felt less distressed. She reflected on this and began her research. It has been over 35 years since Dr. Shapiro first discovered the significance of eye movements on distress levels. In those years, EMDR has shown its effectiveness through case studies, randomized clinical trials, and countless hours of therapists treating clients all over the world for a myriad of issues. As indicated previously, EMDR is utilized by the VA in treating combat veterans. Along with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, EMDR is recognized as an effective treatment by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Psychiatric Association.
What can you expect from an EMDR Session?
EMDR is unique in its use of bilateral stimulation or BLS, whether that is from the client following with their eyes the hand movements of the therapist, gentle tapping on alternating sides of the body, or even sounds in one ear and then the other. The role of BLS, especially eye movements in EMDR is two fold. One is due to the desensitizing nature of the movements, which allows for you to process those often disturbing memories while feeling less overwhelmed. The other reason is that the movement is thought to mimic the way our eyes move in REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. REM sleep is when the brain is thought to process our emotional experiences and memories.
Getting ample rest before a test is often better than staying up and cramming until the last minute. Think about the wisdom in this common piece of advice: “Maybe you should sleep on it.” Doesn’t “sleeping on it” often help you gain a new perspective? We can’t know exactly why BLS works, but it has proven to be effective!
More on what to expect in an EMDR Session
An EMDR session will focus on a target memory; your therapist will help you activate that memory by asking you a series of questions about the images, thoughts, feelings, and sensations in your body when recalling it. You will then, with the assistance of your therapist and the BLS, begin to process this memory. It’s challenging to put in words what that part is actually like because our brains process things differently. You may notice sounds, images, sensations, or thoughts. It could be like sitting in the passenger seat watching for the view to change.
The beauty is that your brain will show you what it needs to show you in order to take this corrupted and stuck memory and organize it so it no longer negatively impacts you. It’s no longer distorted; you have the full and complete picture. It’s certainly not magic and frankly it’s not easy either. You are utilizing a lot of mental and emotional energy in this process. But your brain is doing most of the work on its own while you are noticing what comes up. That is because God created you to heal and so your brain follows its Great Designer!
Before concluding, let’s pause to consider God’s handiwork
Do you ever marvel at the magnificence of God’s creation? I do. And we are part of that: our bodies and brains and minds are amazing! One wonderful thing about how God created us is in our ability to heal. When we cut ourselves, the wound heals. The same is true of our minds, whether the cuts be from someone inflicting pain on us or from an embarrassing mistake we made ourselves. We cannot undo the past, but we can reintegrate those stuck experiences that may be interfering with our present.
While trying to consider how to illustrate what stuck memories are like, I thought of the book of Psalms and specifically how laments are structured. If you are not familiar with them, I invite you to read and study them. There is nothing hidden in their expressions of the depth of our human emotional experience; I feel understood when I read them.
Most of the laments in The Psalms are structured in a way that begins with the psalmist’s expression of grief or sorrow, followed by a particular complaint about it, then there’s a request for help to conclude with the confidence that God can be trusted. I’m thinking about our maladaptively stuck memories and how they are in the process of a lament but they missed the beautiful conclusion where God can still be trusted. That is the truth we want written on our hearts!
In Closing
The most amazing processor of information is our brain and we have merely scratched the surface of all there is to know about its function. We do know that how we interpret situations, whether they are good or bad, and especially while our brain is still developing, is absolutely pivotal to our mental health. And sometimes because our brains aren’t working at full capacity while we are emotionally flooded, we are unable to grasp the full reality of a situation. We cannot grow from it the way God intended. And those stuck memories can negatively impact our relationship with ourselves and others. With the help of a therapist and EMDR, you can process the things in your past that are interfering with your present.
Cumberland Counseling Centers has, along with myself, several EMDR therapists who would be honored to partner with you as you work toward adaptively filing those stuck experiences.
Written by, Michelle Robertson, APC, NCC