Healing Power of EMDR

In today's podcast, I would like to share a couple of examples or experiences that I've had, doing EMDR therapy with individuals who are struggling with PTSD. They're trauma survivors. So if you haven't Heard of EMDR? EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. And to understand how, EMDR works, it is a process of trying to reach the subconscious part of the brain, where, from my perspective, trauma remains stuck.

So a brief review of a concept that is extremely powerful and helping all of us understand how our brain works is dividing it to what I call the 2 part brain model. In the most simplistic terms, the 2 part brain refers to the prefrontal cortex, which is the rational cognitive part of the brain. It's the part that tries to make sense of things. It's The part that knows you're having problems with an addiction, with with recurring nightmares, and yet notwithstanding that you know you're having problems, the problem still persist, which creates a lot of frustration, anxiety, and can lead into depression and so forth. So EMDR is a process that involves bilateral stimulation of the eyes or bilateral eye movements that mimic, what's happening in our brain during REM or rapid eye movement, sleep when we're dreaming.

Every night, When we go to sleep, the average individual has 4 or 5 dreaming periods. And that's where when they're dreaming, and if you have an animal, a dog, cat, you've probably noticed that They'll be sleeping, and they'll be kind of moving around jerking. Their eye movements will you know, their eyes will be going back and forth. Of what's happening when that happens. And we believe that the brain is trying to consolidate memories or experiences that have happened that day, and then just kind of places them somewhere in the brain or in a a combination of places in the brain.

Like, the brain is huge library of experiences. And one of the metaphors that I like to share with clients is is I show them a picture of a a huge library. And this metaphor at least makes sense to me that during the day the library doors are open, Experiences are happening. It's like people are in reading books and and pulling books off shelves and, you know, just a lot of activity, a lot of hustle and bustle in in the mind going on. When night comes And we go to sleep, the door shut, and all the leftover residue of the day.

So there's books on carts. There's books on counters, tables. The librarian comes in when we're sleeping and during REM sleep, The theory is that they the librarian picks these books up and places them in certain areas of the brain, consolidating memories. And then we wake up the next day, and then we go about life again. The problem is that with traumatic events, things that are experienced very intensely that are frightening, disturbing, that The librarian does not seem to be able to pick up those books.

It's like they're thrown on the floor. They're they're piling up at different places in the library. And so when people come in the next day and and and The doors are open. It's like you're it's all cloggy. It's like and that's like the metaphor is that people are having trouble feeling comfortable in life, feeling confident.

They're they're always worried. They're always anxious. That's because there's something in the subconscious mind that is not resolved. And what EMDR therapy does is So if I were doing it with a client and they were had a trigger that brought them to the they brought to a session today saying, yeah, I'm having this really difficult time ago. Tell me about the experience, what happened in this experience.

And and, maybe they had an argument with the spouse or not feeling confident at work, worrying about they're gonna use lose their job or or any number of events. And then I would say, How do you feel in your body right now? What are you experiencing experiencing? And then I'd say, can you float back in time using your memory to the best the best that you can. What was the earliest and first experience of feeling something similar to that.

And usually, they can come up with something, and then we go back to that experience, and talk about it. And and and if I've already laid the groundwork for EMDR, and I'd say, alright, let's begin the process of taking a look at that. And I'd say, well, go back to that earliest and first experience, and the theory behind going back to the earliest and first. If you can take care of that, then the other things that have happened since then have a tendency just to resolve themselves. I mean, it it it's happened with a number of individuals that I've worked with.

And so if they go back to that early and first experience, What are they feeling? What are they experiencing? And then I would say, okay. Just be there. And we would sit opposite each other, but kind of I would be to the side of them where my hand would would move in front of their eyes.

And I'd hold my hand up or a couple of fingers, and I would say, notice that experience, what you're going through, and follow my fingers. And then I do a number of bilateral stimulations back and forth back and forth. And then I'd stop the bilateral stimulations, And then I would say to them, what do you notice now? And their their brain We'll come up with something else. And and and then you and then you just simply say, well, notice that and go with that.

And then I'd do more bilateral stimulations. And then let's say, what do you notice now? Something else will come up. So The power behind EMDR is the the philosophy that a person's brain is the part that's doing the healing. The brain wants to heal.

It's kind of like our body. If we get a a sore or a cut on our and what happens. Our body heals itself it heals itself. Our brain is trying to do the same thing, but because of the way the limbic system works In that subconscious part of the brain, there's this main place called the hippocampus. We believe is a place where it's It consolidates memories, and then still not sure where they go in the brain, but from the best knowledge we have there, It's not one specific place in the brain, but it goes through the hippocampus, and then it's placed memories are placed in different parts of the brain.

And and through this process of bilateral stimulation, you go back and Somehow it's able to resolve some of these issues. And I'll give you a specific example of someone who is having chronic nightmares who would wake up 3 or 4 times a week in a panic. This was a survivor of of childhood abuse. And this individual would wake up, and she would just be in an absolute state of terror. Her husband would have to to grab her really quickly or gently and say, honey, you're just having a dream.

You're just having a dream. It's okay. It's okay. And then and then his wife would okay. Okay.

And then, you know, but just very, very disturbed by the dreams. They were chronic. They wouldn't stop. And as I was meeting with her when I first got introduced to EMDR and was trained in, and I explained to her, with the process. Because talking, cognitive behavioral therapy, although it's very valuable and powerful and important in working through some things and helping problem solve.

It doesn't it doesn't really access the subconscious part of the brain where all of this stuff is going on. She could not tell herself from the prefrontal don't have these nightmares, or she could tell her tell herself that it just simply doesn't work. The chronic nightmares continue to come. So we And I'm and I'm not I'm not saying this happens all the time, but in this case, we did 1 45 minute session of EMDR on that. Had her go back when she came in for therapy.

I says, when's the last time you had a nightmare? Just last night. They tell me about the nightmare, same thing over and over again. I don't need to tell you the details of the nightmare, but it's the same chronic nightmares. And then I said, notice that and just follow my fingers.

And we just process that. What do you notice now? And every time We'd go through a series of bilateral stimulations. Images would change in her mind, something else would open up, This would change, that would change, something else came in. And after 45 minutes, it was the strangest thing to me, you know, and then we finished the last set of bilateral stimulations.

And and she goes, okay. I think I'm done. And I go, what do you mean? She goes, I I think I'm done. And it was it was emotionally Powerful for her during this session, yes, there were a lot of tears.

She was facing what she needed to face. In a conversation with a respected colleague this week, we were talking about how it is that We try to avoid going back and dealing with our stuff, and we cannot do that. In order to be healed, we have to face the demons of our lives. And And it's it's critical that you find someone, a trained therapist, that you feel comfortable with that can help you on that journey. But so you think about the way the 2 part brain works.

There's 3 prime directives. And when I say, in the limbic system, 3 prime directives in the limbic system. Number 1 is survival. That's a type of brain that's largely functioning in a lion or a tiger. Its job is to keep us alive.

We have that part, and it stays alive by 2nd prime directive, avoiding anything that's painful. And the 3rd prime directive, seek pleasure, get away from the pain. That's why we don't like to go back and face the traumas of our life. And so the brain itself is set up to stop us from going back there. I I don't want to talk about that.

I don't want to go there. How how often have you heard that? But unless you find a safe environment to do that and to have the courage to go back and take a look and face the demons that are in front of you. They will forever stay there, and they'll keep bothering you. And and so for so this this individual I'm telling you about, I admire her so greatly.

It was So hard for her to do that, but their dreams were so disturbing. They said, do this on me. Do this crazy EMDR thing on me. And and and then when she said I was done, and I've stayed in contact with her through the years, and we did that probably 15 years ago to this day, she has not had a recurring nightmare exactly the same. She's had a couple in the 1st year, she had a couple of similar nightmares, but there was difference.

There was there was a road between there was a barrier between what used to be when she was right there. But other than that, she's had nothing. She's had no nightmares. That part of whatever was happening in her brain had resolved itself. So we don't Fully understand how this all works, only that it works.

Something is going on. So think about this mystery as we're thinking about life. 1 third of our lives is spent in a sleep state. Nobody really even understands it to this day other than we as humans do it. After about 16 hours, Something floods our brain, chemicals that makes us tired, and we just fall asleep.

And then we we have dreams, And even those who don't remember their dreams are having dreams. They just don't remember them, and there's most likely something about that. So that's just I just wanted to to share briefly, one of the experiences that I've had with EMDR, and I've I've I've experienced very similar things with many, many clients through the years with EMDR therapy now. And there's this the latest thing, kinda the cutting edge, even on top of that is this thing called Acceleration Accelerated Resolution Therapy, who was developed by Lainie Rosenzweig. And Fascinating stuff.

She's using similar principles, but through active imagination, visualizing things, going back, and positizing some of the negative events in your life. Meaning, you go back to the trauma, but you change the story In your imagination and you kind of lock it in with eye movements, something happens. Now, the you understand that you're only imagining things, but to the brain itself, the brain can't really tell the difference. So if you, for example, at the unit or in in Colorado at the United States Olympic Olympic Training Facility, 9095 to 98% of all Olympic athletes use mental imagery to to perfect their craft, whatever their whatever their athletic event is. They totally believe in imagery.

And when you you hook up a person's brain and with the the technology that we have now, When you're visualizing and thinking of doing certain things, your brain lights up in exactly the same way as if you are physically doing it. See, so the brain itself can't tell the difference. So you take this theory, And if you go back in time, and you literally change some of the stories and the experiences that you had, Takes a lot of courage to go back there, but you go back and you change the stories. And then you kinda lock it in with eye movements, you know, doing bilateral stimulations, going back and forth with your eyes as you're thinking about, you know, then something happens. It's like the emotional connection to the trauma seems to be cut.

And it's like it's for example, and one individual I was doing this with, He says, I feel as we're doing the stimulations, I feel I'm a boat on an ocean, but there's a huge anchor, and it's just rooted in the ground, and there's so much tension as the boat is trying to pull away from this anchor. And then as we continue to do the bilateral stimulations, visualizing different things, He says, I I see the anchor. There's cords around the anchor, and it's starting to to shrivel a little bit and break apart. And then eventually with a couple of more series of bilateral stimulations, he says, I saw the anchor Line just snapped in half. Poof.

It snapped to half, and the boat was free. And the and what was left of the anchor just went right down to the bottom. The The remaining chord just fell right down to the bottom, and he was free from that. And then as you come out of the, you know, the bilateral stimulations and just kinda get grounded again. Okay.

We're we're done with this experience. It's like, I feel so much better. I feel so much lighter, whatever was holding me back seems to have resolved itself. But see, this all takes place at the subconscious part of the brain, down in the limbic system. And it's the same area where where this mysterious part where we spend a third of our lives in in in this place that we don't really understand.

Only thing we do understand is something's happening with it. So if you're struggling with something that you have not been able to resolve about talk therapy, whether it's an addiction or just just past trauma triggers. You know, look in look into EMDR therapy, and perhaps, you know, accelerated resolution therapy. It's still kind of on the cutting edges. There's been some research at the University of South Florida on accelerated resolution therapy that is extremely promising.

And so, anyway, so that's just a little snippet on EMDR and the power, behind that. And, anyway and so that's just what I wanted to share today.