EMDR Intensive

EMDR stands for Eye-Movement Desensitization Rehabilitation Therapy. We have found that it is the single most effective intervention outside of depth psychology that we utilize with individuals in order to heal wounds around traumatic events.

Trauma is any experience an individual has had where their felt overwhelmed and did not have the adequate support around the experience to metabolize and integrate it in a developmentally appropriate manner. Thus, the experience is filed away into our bodies and psyche in a dysfunctional, side-ways manner.

What does it mean to be triggered? Something in your current experience in the present day has the flavor and feelings of what happened when you were smaller. Your smaller “part” of self comes forward to center stage and often takes you over in these moments of overwhelm. When we are triggered, we lose access to our adult self. We lose access to impertinent parts of our neurology that are necessary in order to move through the world as a healthy, integrated adult.

This is where EMDR comes in. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to activate both sides of your brain so that what you KNOW (your left, adult brain) can connect with what you FEEL (your right, child brain). We want what we know (our adult brain) to connect with what we feel (our smaller parts of self that suffered through the trauma) so that they can communicate together. Communication is what allows the aspects of an individual that is frozen in the traumatic experience to be rescued, connected with, and soothed by the adult.