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A Powerful Approach to Treating Mental Health Issues
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a revolutionary therapy that effectively treats trauma, anxiety, and other mental health challenges. Research has shown that it can help reduce symptoms and improve overall well-being. By targeting past experiences that contribute to current symptoms, EMDR therapy can help individuals process and health from traumatic events and other adverse life experiences.
Care Counseling Services offers EMDR therapy in our Manchester, Concord, Nashua, and Haverhill offices and also by telehealth for anyone in the states of New Hampshire or Massachusetts.
95% of the clients who complete EMDR Therapy with us will never require therapy again!
What Is EMDR Therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a form of psychotherapy that was originally developed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related conditions. It involves a standardized set of procedures that includes bilateral stimulation of the brain (such as eye movements, taps, or tones) while the patient revisits traumatic memories or experiences.
The theory behind EMDR is that traumatic experiences can become “stuck” in the brain’s memory networks, leading to symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety. By using bilateral stimulation during the recall of traumatic memories, EMDR aims to facilitate the reprocessing of these memories in a way that reduces their emotional intensity and helps them become integrated into the individual’s normal memory network.
EMDR is typically delivered over several sessions and can be used to treat a range of conditions beyond PTSD, such as anxiety, depression, and phobias. The therapy has gained widespread acceptance over the past few decades and is now recognized as an evidence-based treatment for trauma-related conditions by organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
Who Can Benefit From EMDR Therapy?
EMDR therapy helps children and adults of all ages. Therapists use EMDR therapy to address a wide range of challenges:
- Anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias
- Chronic illness and medical issues
- Depression and bipolar disorders
- Dissociative disorders
- Eating disorders
- Grief and loss
- Pain
- Performance anxiety
- Personality disorders
- PTSD and other trauma and stress-related issues
- Sexual assault
- Sleep disturbance
- Substance abuse and addiction
- Violence and abuse
How Does EMDR Work?
EMDR is an 8 phase process
Phase 1
Gathering history and target identification.
The path to self-discovery begins here. First, your therapist will work with you to gather information related to your history and current symptoms. While going through the information-gathering stage, you will also get a chance to learn more about the actual EMDR process.
There is a good chance you will make several meaningful connections during this process. Your therapist would typically ask you to rate past life events on a disturbance scale to ensure your therapy targets are the most relevant issues. At the end of this phase, you will work with your therapist to set the treatment goals.
Phase 2
Education and resourcing.
During phase two of EMDR Therapy, you will be guided through imagery and stress reduction techniques that will be helpful during and between sessions. This stage also helps to foster trust between you and your therapist. In addition, we will want you to have a thorough explanation of the EMDR process, so you feel informed, relaxed, and confident during treatment. The goal of EMDR therapy is to produce rapid and effective change while also maintaining equilibrium between sessions.
Phase 3
Assessing and Determining Target Memories
During this phase, the actual trauma or negative events will come to the forefront. First, your therapist will ask you to start visualizing and experiencing relevant sensations related to a disturbing event. The therapist will then ask you to identify a positive and negative statement or emotion to describe how you feel about the event. Finally, you will rate the positive statement or emotion using the 1-to-7 Validity of Cognition (VoC) scale and the negative statement or emotion using the Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD) scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being worst.
After setting the positive and negative baseline ratings, the goal of EMDR is to increase the VoC rating while decreasing the SUD rating.
Phase 4
Desensitization
In this phase, you will begin dealing with memories. As you re-process disturbing memories and the associated sensations, your brain will start to resolve issues naturally. As issues get resolved, you will begin to move closer to final trauma resolution incrementally as the SUD scale moves closer to zero (0).
Phase 5
Installation
By the time you reach this stage, you will have processed your disturbing memories to some level of resolution. You should begin to feel somewhat empowered and more in control of your feelings and emotions.
Phase 6
Body Scan
Your therapist will ask you to bring back the target negative event or trauma for reevaluation. The reevaluation process is called a body scan. After bringing back the negative event or trauma, your therapist will look to confirm that you no longer feel negative emotions or body stress related to the event or trauma. The process will be repeated until you report no residual negativity associated with the disturbing memory.
Phase 7
Closure
What happens during the closure phase will depend on where each session ends. For example, if you successfully resolved the negativity associated with the target memory, your therapist would close the session and reevaluate the target at your following appointment. However, if the negativity is not fully resolved, the therapist will end the session with containment and calming exercises. Closure exercises are intended to leave you feeling somewhat in control until you return to continue working on the final resolution.
Phase 8
Reevaluation
The reevaluation phase is when your therapist will evaluate the last treatment session's effectiveness. They will reevaluate disturbance levels to see if the positive feelings remain in control. If the previous EMDR therapy session was incomplete, the next session would pick up at phase 4.
Heal as fast as you want with our EMDR Intensive Program
This intensive program delivers EMDR therapy in a shorter, more intense period. Our clients can feel better in just 1-2 weeks or even days! Typically, we schedule treatment in blocks of 2 to 4 hours. Most clients only require 7 hours of therapy, and they have met their therapy goals.
Intensive EMDR provides many benefits:
- Eliminating weeks or months of living with trauma symptoms and quickly reducing adverse effects
- A shorter duration of treatment saves money.
- Shorter wait times than many other mental health providers in New Hampshire due to the high graduation rate of our clients
- Studies prove that EMDR intensives are a state-of-the-art modality for the treatment of trauma.
- Local clients can complete the program in one weekend.
EMDR Research and International Recognition
Studies show that it is possible to alleviate distressing symptoms more rapidly with EMDR than with talk therapy alone. For example, in one study funded by the HMO Kaiser Permanente, EMDR eliminated PTSD for 100% of people who had experienced a single traumatic event and 77% who had experienced multiple traumas after completing six 50-minute sessions. In addition, discussing the details of a traumatic experience is not required in EMDR sessions. Therefore EMDR alleviates the anxiety associated with confronting and revealing those details.
EMDR is approved as an effective form of treatment for PTSD by several major health organizations, including the World Health Organization, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, United Kingdom Department of Health, the Israeli National Council for Mental Health and many other international health agencies.
- For more information, please visit www.emdria.org.
Still curious about EMDR Therapy? Watch these videos!