COAST TO COAST

healing story

ANONYMOUS RETREAT CLIENT

[I've experienced] sixty-five years of needless anxiety. EMDR gets to the initial trauma and reprocesses it so that there are no longer triggers to the original trauma.

EMDR is a psychotherapy that uses bilateral stimulation to help the mind bring up memories, thoughts, and feelings that may otherwise be inaccessible. 

If you’re unfamiliar with EMDR this may sound a little intimidating, so let’s break it down. The “bilateral stimulation” comes in the form of eye movements, holding tappers, or even audio sounds. What this does is “turns on” the brain’s natural healing system that allows us to adaptively process memories – very much like we do in REM sleep. EMDR empowers clients to heal their symptoms instead of just learning to cope with them.

EMDR is different from “talk therapy” because often clients are conflicted between what they know is true in their mind and what their “gut” tells them. Through EMDR, the client gains insight to connect the rational information they know in their brain with the trauma memory and gut feeling to transform it. This eliminates their distress and symptoms, and allows them to gain an improved belief about themselves. EMDR does not require homework or verbalizing the details of the trauma.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing | EMDR

Understanding EMDR