Understanding EMDR: A Therapy Approach for First Responders

Jennifer [00:00:00]:
First responders will say, I was just in the parking lot at Walmart and I needed to go in and I'm having this large physical reaction. That's because that amygdala talk about not being online, that amygdala has this kind of memory and this connection immediately with their body. And so EMDR does this great job and I say speaking amane, speaking to our amygdala through, through our physical body. You know, with emdr, you're doing a lot of check ins of notice what you notice in your body doing body scan, starting of the top of your head to the bottom of your toes. You know what do you notice? Do you notice tension? Do you notice relaxation? Do you notice numbness? Do you notice nothing? Like all those things are ways in which we're trying to get that to not let ourselves go offline. To use your. Hi, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Jennifer.

Ashlee [00:00:55]:
And I'm Ashlee. We hope everybody had a really great Thanksgiving.

Jennifer [00:00:59]:
Yes, we do. We do hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving and we appreciate you checking out our thankful episode. And it's just us again. We are doing things a little bit different here lately, but I like it when it's just you and I sometimes.

Ashlee [00:01:13]:
I know I kind of love it. I think people forget like everyone has lives and of course scheduling and things like that. But we are blessed. I mean we are super blessed. We have some really cool things lined up and honestly, like, it's really nice over the holidays not to have to worry about 1 million schedules. And just us too.

Jennifer [00:01:31]:
That is the truth. I was on a text message chain about people trying to meet and I'm like, we're really going to try to meet before January. No, like that's just not going to happen. So. And we have a specific thing we wanted to talk about today, which is emdr.

Ashlee [00:01:49]:
Yeah. And I think that I want to preference something that came to me when we were trying to brainstorm. Hey, what do we talk about today? Right? Like what do we give our audience? Something that I think we fall short on when we're talking about therapy in general is that a lot of people have one thought process and if there is something that I can say is that both of us are making waves and changing the stigma, especially with first responders coming to therapy. I still almost every day get the cliche of like, well, I thought therapy was, hey, tell me how this makes you feel over and over again. The whole come in my office, all my officers, my firefighters too. But I feel like my firefighters give me A little bit less grief. But hey, my police for sure will be like, oh, where's the big comfy couch that I get to lay on? And I'm like, okay, this, this is not, you know, But I've also been doing a heck of a lot of ride alongs, which is beautiful because one thing I always strive for in this, I guess, this career is that I never want to stop Lear from them too. So one way I do that is to ride along with them.

Ashlee [00:02:53]:
And in that ride along, I am doing nothing clinically. Of course, if we're stuck in a squad together for eight hours, I'm going to talk to you because I'm just a talker, but I'm there to learn from you. I'm there to just be excited about what's going on. I'm not there to diagnose or evaluate or what have you the person I'm riding with. And I get that every single time. They'll be like, doc G is coming with me. Oh, they must think I need an evaluation. They must think.

Ashlee [00:03:17]:
And I'm like, what? Like, that is not true. So that does often lead me to this discussion of what do you think therapy is? And while there's some truth to therapy being a lot about talking.

Jennifer [00:03:28]:
Right.

Ashlee [00:03:28]:
And a lot about processing, digging, connecting things, there's also different ways that we do therapy now. And I think we could spend six years, Jennifer, like, talking about all these things. But the one thing that I know both you and I kind of specialize in you more so than me. So I'm going to pass this mic a lot is emdr. And I think it's important to talk about. And I think this episode, we're just going to bring it to light and then probably expand upon it in like a follow up episode, only because there is so much. But why don't we break down what that is? I think it's important for people to know that there's different things out there that we can do. EMDR being one of them.

Jennifer [00:04:05]:
Yeah. Well, I think first is like, what is EMDR stand for? Yes. Which is eye movement desuscitation reprocessing. I always struggle.

Ashlee [00:04:14]:
Okay, I was just about to say I can never. I can never say that either again.

Jennifer [00:04:20]:
Yes. And the Francis Shapiro is the. I wouldn't call her the inventor, I guess the discoverer of EMDR and kind of move things forward with this therapeutic intervention. She said she wished to come up with a different name and I kind of wish that she had as well. But it really is just a Intervention that therapists can use that is a little bit different than talk therapy. I don't know, Ashlee. I feel like we started over. You made me reflect.

Jennifer [00:04:53]:
Like, gosh, what do people really do think that therapy is? But I. I'll be specific and talk about emdr. So how I explain EMDR to clients is that it is a way in which the brain naturally heals itself. So in the eye movement, it's replicating our REM sleep, our deepest cycle of sleep. REM sleep is when your eyes are rapidly moving back and forth. That is the rapid eye movement that happens in REM sleep, which is a deep sleep cycle. A lot of our first responders don't get into REM sleep because of. They do not, which makes it really difficult.

Jennifer [00:05:34]:
And you know something I think is great about the human body in a lot of ways, it's so healthy and can heal itself. So when I think like, oh, if I cut my finger, I'm not thinking, okay, I need to clot blood and grow a scab, grow new skin, that my body just automatically does that. And our brain has that ability too. When we rest, we sleep. We pre process our experience of the day. And unfortunately, sometimes there's experiences that we have that maybe we don't get a good night's sleep afterwards. Or there's experiences that we have, especially when we're first responders, that, you know, nobody should really have to go see or experience these things. There's no place in our brain.

Jennifer [00:06:14]:
Brain to put some of the horrors that people experience when they're first responders. And what EMDR is doing is just taking that information. Clients can do different things, like the eye movement, which is the replication of the REM sleep. There's also this fancy word called bilateral stimulation. It is just where both hemispheres of the brain are working. Okay, have I gotten too technical? Like, are you.

Ashlee [00:06:40]:
No, you're doing a great job. I always giggle when I hear. Because when I explain, explain it. And I go. I don't know why I go to the run sleep par. And I talk about the eye shifting. I'm always waiting for someone to be like, wait, what? Or like, freak out about that. Or be like, our eyes shift.

Ashlee [00:06:54]:
But, yeah, no, I think you're doing great job.

Jennifer [00:06:56]:
I think that's always important. You know, when I tell people that about sleep, I'm quick to say, I'm not putting you to sleep. I'm not hypnotizing you. You're awake and conscious throughout this experience. And EMDR has been in practice for you know, over decades now. I want to say like 30.

Ashlee [00:07:17]:
I was going to say, I know.

Jennifer [00:07:18]:
It'S over 30 now, probably getting closer to 40. And technology has come a lot further. So as much as people do eye movement, there's what we call tappers, a real clinical word. But it's just this thing that will vibrate in your hand and go back and forth. I do a lot of virtual sessions, so I use eye movement a lot with virtual sessions. But I also have auditorial. So it will go into one headphone, then the next headphone, if people have headphones in. And then there's also tactical tapping, where I just have people, like, cross their arms and we'll tap.

Jennifer [00:07:52]:
And I get to tap with them, which is I get some free emdr sometimes when I'm doing that with clients, you know what, I work with clients in terms of, like a traumatic experience. And there can be one call that's a traumatic experience. And sometimes those are some experiences that as therapists will call little T's that are small traumatic experiences. And sometimes those little T's can be a little bit harder than the big T's. If we maybe had an experience with an adult that made us feel less than, or if we maybe had a thing at school that made, you know, school was hard and we felt left out in groups. Like, there's just these experiences that we have when we're little and we don't have all the information that are. If you think about our hemispheres, our left and our right, and our thinking and our feeling when we're little, we can get that really confused. And so EMDR can be a great resource sometimes for, you know, my smart brain knows that I'm loved and cared for, and yet sometimes in my heart, I don't feel that way.

Jennifer [00:08:57]:
And EMDR is a great tool that can kind of get those online together. It is a researched intervention. This is not just some therapists came together, like, hey, let's try this. There's lots of research that shows that, as an intervention can be really helpful. Yeah.

Ashlee [00:09:15]:
And I think it's important to kind of do a little throwback to one of our very first episodes that probably hasn't gotten the attention that it needs just because we were really brand new babies to this whole podcast thing. But when we had Dr. Kuei on here, she did a fabulous job, like, talking to us about how the brain works. Right. And what happens to the brain when we're in high stress situations. And I think that it's important when we're talking about EMDR to remember that prefrontal cortex gets kind of a little bit offline. It's not fully there when we are in a high stress situation, which makes it hard for us to actually reprocess things in a way that we typically would if it was a normal event. And so I always tell my guys and girls that come to me that in that moment, like your brain is still taking everything in, typically through your senses, but the piecing it together is kind of hard.

Ashlee [00:10:01]:
And it'll take that situation and it'll store it away in your long term memory in what I call the red file encampment. And it'll just keep doing that if we don't take it back out and reprocess it with our prefrontal cortex back online. Right. To have those facts of everything that happened around us with that emotional side and to work through it that way. But I think that's something really important to recognize is that literally the brain is doing this to us when we're in these careers. And it's something that we can't necessarily help. It's just how we respond.

Jennifer [00:10:30]:
Well, and I think to that whole point, you know, something I talk a lot about with clients is that EMDR is really working to speak to our amygdala to that, you know, survival part of our brain, which is not our frontal cortex. It's not that smart decision making self. It is just about survival. Which I think, you know, is kind of cool that like our brain is wired in a way that survival, I mean, that's gotta be the most important thing. Not always about our happiness or feeling good. It's about surviving and that connection with your amygdala and our physical body. You know, if I'm running from a saber tooth tiger, I can't digest my bologna sandwich.

Ashlee [00:11:12]:
Yes.

Jennifer [00:11:12]:
You know, I need to feel my heart racing. I'm gonna feel sweaty in case somebody grabs me. Like all these things. And we have these physical responses and that memory. Right. And so that's why I think sometimes first responders will say, I was just in the parking lot at Walmart and I needed to go in and I'm having this large physical reaction. That's because that amygdala talked about not being online. That amygdala has this kind of memory and this connection immediately with their body.

Jennifer [00:11:42]:
And so EMDR does this great job. I say speaking, Amy knees, speaking to our amygdala through our physical body. You know, with emdr, you're doing a lot of check ins of notice what you notice in your body doing body scan, starting of the top of your head to the bottom of your toes. You know, what do you notice? Do you notice tension? Do you notice relaxation? Do you notice numbness? Do you notice nothing? Like, all those things are ways in which we're trying to get that to not let ourselves go offline, to use your kind of metaphor, and allow that stuff to kind of be processed in a way that says, I don't have to have a physical response in the parking lot. Like, I can say, like, hey, I'm safe.

Ashlee [00:12:27]:
I'm okay.

Jennifer [00:12:28]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Ashlee [00:12:31]:
And why do you and I. I know I'm. I'm bouncing off of you here, but I do find that EMDR is, like, my first responders really take to emdr. I happen to think that baseline, like, not going anything significant here. I like that EMDR structured feel like my first responders appreciate that too, because they are more structured humans. It's more like, this is where you start. This is right. Like.

Ashlee [00:12:57]:
And so there's a protocol to it, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So I think that that's why my first responders really take to it. But do you have any experiences like you and I utilize EMDR a lot? What would you say is your feedback to that? Do you feel like it's really beneficial for your first responders as well?

Jennifer [00:13:15]:
Yes, and a big reason why, I think. I mean, I didn't really think of it in terms of the structure. I think it's more of, like, they.

Ashlee [00:13:22]:
Don'T have to talk on that too, though.

Jennifer [00:13:26]:
They don't. They kind of like that. Like, they like that. It's just first responders can be pretty in touch physically sometimes. There's some hurdles to being more in touch emotionally. And so I think sometimes it's a really great place to say, okay, I physically feel that in my chest. Like, that. There's some tangibility to that that I think is helpful.

Jennifer [00:13:49]:
And again, it's not kind of what you said of, like, the joke of, oh, where's your couch? And let me talk about all my feelings. It's a place of really, you know, if you want things to be different, we can really roll our sleeves up and do some work here. And I will say, you know, I did therapy for. Gosh, I'm trying to think how long. I've probably been a therapist for, like, five years. And when I was in graduate school, like, people talked about this EMDR thing, and I had some professors that were like, it's great I had some professors that were skeptical. I mean, I just. I think it still then was I've been out of school for a long time, so still in its infancy some.

Jennifer [00:14:29]:
And I think a big hurdle for some therapists is that it's pretty expensive to get trained. Of course. Yeah. Don't get me started on that. But anyways, when I had the opportunity, I felt very lucky. I had a lot of skills as a therapist, but this was a tool in my toolbox that really kind of can help, like, in terms of, like, you see a little bit more traction sometimes. And that being said, I have people that are gang hov I'm going to do emdr. And then we get to it and they really need to be heard.

Jennifer [00:15:06]:
They have some pretty big feelings and feel ignored. And there's power in using your voice and talking and stuff. There's times where people come in and I will say with emdr, there is sometimes people feel kind of like, what are you doing here? And a little bit of a loss of control. And that doesn't feel good. And so sometimes you have to build some trust.

Ashlee [00:15:32]:
Absolutely.

Jennifer [00:15:33]:
I think EMDR is great. I think if it was a silver bullet, then we would all be trained and it would be free and. And stuff. I think it's incredible how the brain works and how people want to heal and that it's a great intervention when the time's right for people. Yeah.

Ashlee [00:15:51]:
And I think what's really important and why we wanted to come on so this is a brief episode today, but because we're leading up to something more. And one thing that I think is just crucial that we wanted to take away with today is that there is other things you can do in therapy. And emdr, you said it best. EMDR is something that you can get help for what you're going through and maybe not have to be as talkative as you thought you would in the therapeutic setting. And that's a really big deal for a lot of my first responders. And I want, one, I want our listeners to take this episode and go, maybe do some of their own research. Scholarly. I mean, don't obviously.

Ashlee [00:16:28]:
Right. Like, we can probably find anything on anything, but be smart about the research. But look it up. Look up emdr, look up other therapeutic interventions, because I think it's so important to realize that, like, hey, there's a lot of different ways we can get help nowadays. Two, we're definitely going to expand upon a lot more with this as time comes. And so it's just important to set the foundation as well of what EMDR is and, and why you and I both use it.

Jennifer [00:16:56]:
Absolutely. And I appreciate, like, what does therapy really look like? What is it going to be? And I just know how I do it and my style. And with that being said, like, I still just sit on one side of that dynamic. So, you know, I hope that people experience like feeling heard and understood. And one thing I always tell clients, and I think this goes back to another episode we had about cultural composite therapist, is therapy is just not one size fits all. And, and that can be hard.

Ashlee [00:17:32]:
Yeah.

Jennifer [00:17:32]:
You know, you want somebody that feels like a good fit. And I'm very honest and transparent with people early on to say, like, hey, it's not about me, it's about you. Like, this has to feel like a fit for you. And so I think that's important to kind of circle back to. And I've worked with clients who have had EMDR with other clinicians and then doing EMDR with me. And the first thing I always say is like, hey, we're all going to put our fingerprints on this in a different way. And so just because this therapist did EMDR with eye movement and this one does it, what's happening, stopping, doesn't mean that one's better or one's worse.

Ashlee [00:18:11]:
Good point. Yeah.

Jennifer [00:18:13]:
And I do think though, there has to fill a place of like, you feel safe with that.

Ashlee [00:18:19]:
Oh, absolutely. This is some intense work. Like, I never, I'm always like, hey, I'm not gonna, I don't know, do we beep this bullshit you. But it's not easy. It's not easy work. And yet though the reward to it sometimes is, is worth it. It is worth it to do the work. But EMDR can be really intense.

Ashlee [00:18:37]:
And so you absolutely have to have a safe place and build rapport with that clinician and feel good to do it.

Jennifer [00:18:43]:
Yeah. You know, and I think that that's a real true thing, that it can be like, oh, this is better. Faster by some means, but it doesn't mean it's easier. Like that is. I know people that I took this from a client. They gave me permission to use this because I think it's a great metaphor, especially when I'm working with clients that, that maybe have some childhood stuff about some negative beliefs, like, for example, I'm not good enough. Whatever reason, that was like a seed that was planted when they were little. If you think about an adult who's, you know, midlife, that I'm not good enough has turned into a four lane highway with a speed limit of 75 miles an hour, like that is just an automatic thought.

Jennifer [00:19:31]:
When there's something bad, there's mistakes that happen. It's on me. I'm. I'm not enough. And with emdr, you're looking at closing a lane while at the same time you've created a new path. And on that new path, it's just a footpath right now. And with emdr, you hope to like, oh, I'm going to put some gravel on that I am enough path, that positive belief, and hopefully shut down another lane of your highway. And so it's this idea of transitioning from this negative belief that's been there for a long time to again, this true belief that I'm going to try my hardest or I'm going to do my best or, you know, whatever that positive belief is.

Ashlee [00:20:12]:
Love that though. I love that.

Jennifer [00:20:14]:
You know, sometimes that can be hard to close down a highway, but I think it's really powerful. And I've worked with people that they've got a two lane road now instead of a one gravel path. And yet there can be experiences sometimes that, oh, I'm trying to get back on that highway. And so we've done. EMDR felt great, wonderful. And dang it, if life doesn't continue to happen sometimes. And what's great with EMDR too is like, you can always come back. Like, I've worked with clients on a multitude of things over time and that wasn't.

Jennifer [00:20:46]:
We were working together for 10 years and got all that. It was, you know, we started and we worked on some things and things got a little bit better and then I didn't see them for a bit and then something hard happened and they checked back in and that wasn't as long. That was pretty brief. And so you kind of see that happen as well. And I tell all my clients like, as long as my ears work and my mind's somewhat sane, I plan to be doing this. And so I think it is something that sometimes you love that. Pick up, sit down, pick up, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I love this.

Ashlee [00:21:21]:
So I think that that's, I know, short, brief, to the point in this little mini episode to get us back from the holidays and to get us rolling on some bigger things. Just, you know, I think that people enjoy these shorter episodes. We've gotten some feedback on that because it's a nice little drive to work. And hey, you learned something new today about emdr. So we hope everyone kind of takes something from it research set and then comes back to us. Don't forget to pick up on listening to Dr. Coit's episode, too, because it's really going to start to piece together.

Jennifer [00:21:51]:
Yeah.

Ashlee [00:21:52]:
And I don't want people to forget.

Jennifer [00:21:53]:
About how long ago that episode was. And we're little babies here, like, especially getting into another holiday season. So thanks for checking us out and hit us up with questions about emdr.

Ashlee [00:22:07]:
Absolutely. And never forget that when the call hits home, Jennifer and I are here for you. Thank you.

Jennifer [00:22:12]:
Thanks. Have a good one.