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EMDR Therapy

EMDR therapy Is a Revolutionary Technique That Can Help Relieve Symptoms of Trauma, Stress, Grief, & Anxiety, and so much more, so you can get back to feeling yourself.

Book a session with a trained EMDR therapist to help you resolve whatever is alienating you. Our team of therapists are passionate about helping individuals overcome the obstacles that are standing in the way of their wellbeing and potential.

EMDR Therapy is a fast, Evidence-Based Method for relieving Trauma, PTSD & Anxiety so you can get back to feeling yourself.

The EMDR process involves you describing the traumatic event while focusing on a series of bilateral stimuli, such as eye movements, hand taps, or audio tones. This bilateral stimulation helps you to process the upsetting memories more adaptively by desensitizing your knee-jerk responses to challenging situations. It works directly with the architecture of your nervous system to relieve the symptoms of trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and a host of other symptoms. It can also give insight into the underlying causes of the trauma, allowing you to navigate challenging emotions better so you can move forward in your life.

EMDR has been used to successfully treat various mental health issues, such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, and phobias. It can also help people cope with stress, grief, and loss. Research has shown that EMDR is effective in reducing the symptoms associated with trauma, along with improving overall psychological functioning to regain control of your life. In addition, it is a safe and non-invasive technique that can provide long-term relief from traumatic memories and experiences.

EMDR can also help overcome intrusive negative thought patterns and beliefs such as I am unlovable, not safe, not enough, or I am too much. We often create these beliefs based on experiences from childhood. These negative beliefs can crowd our thinking, dampening our happiness, confidence, drive, and willingness to take essential risks or connect with others.

By desensitizing the experiences that contribute to these beliefs, we can move to more positive thought patterns and highlight all of the strengths, talents, and qualities that are uniquely you. EMDR allows you to reevaluate the foundation of who you think you are and tune into the reality of who you could be.

What problems can EMDR address?

emdr therapy EvanstonEMDR can help heal psychological pain and physical discomfort related to trauma, depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues, and other life events. It is used to treat both upsetting past events and present life conditions effectively.

EMDR allows us to work through anxiety, anger, trauma, relationship problems, or any number of issues by working directly with our nervous system to sync our right and left brains to integrate our thoughts and feelings. It has a significant advantage over traditional talk therapy in that it changes us on a deeper level, so we don’t have to ‘remember’ not to be afraid, angry, or hurt – we just start responding differently. In addition, it resolves emotions, so we no longer react the same ways when confronted with problems. EMDR has also been used to help couples and families resolve conflicts and improve communication.

During EMDR sessions, you focus on the event, thought, or feeling while the therapist guides you through eye movements, tapping, or sounds. This movement helps you diffuse reactions to the memory and gain insight into the associated emotions and beliefs.

How does EMDR work?

EMDR employs bilateral stimulation, activating both sides of the brain in succession. To do this, therapists often use eye movements that imitate rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the phase of sleep associated with processing and digesting recent events. It is believed that this method helps to reprocess traumatic memories so that they become less distressing and no longer trigger anxiety or avoidance behaviors. In addition, by stimulating both sides of the brain, EMDR appears to allow standard information processing to resume.

Traumas resulting from single events, such as a car accident, may require only a few sessions. However, for long-term trauma and multiple traumatic events, therapists must dedicate more time and effort to helping you access your strengths, resources, and coping skills. In addition to aiding in the processing of trauma-related memories, EMDR can also be used to help you uncover and process beliefs that were formed due to relational trauma or childhood abuse/neglect.

For a more detailed explanation, please visit the following links: EMDR InstituteEMDR International Association.

Can I do EMDR along with regular therapy?

At Living Well Psychotherapy, our therapists are integrative and use EMDR with other approaches. Therefore, the decision to pursue EMDR is a joint effort between you and your therapist. First, your therapist will take the time to get to know you and build a strong relationship before considering using EMDR. Then, together, you can decide when the right time is to start using this approach.

Helping You Live Your Best Life

At Living Well Psychotherapy, we understand it takes courage to ask for help, and you don’t have to face it alone. We provide compassionate care and use cutting-edge techniques in neurological science to help our clients live their best lives without the burden of trauma. Our team of mental health professionals is experienced and trained to create individualized treatment plans that allow our clients to reach their professional, personal, and mental health goals.

Your journey starts here. Contact us today for a no-obligation consultation – we are here to listen and support you on your path forward.

Interested in EMDR but still have a few questions?

We know you’ve searched for EMDR on the web and now you have a question, request, or both. That’s why we’ve curated some of our most common trauma related requests below. If you are considering EMDR, please reach out to us to get in touch with a member of our team who will get all of your questions answered.

EMDR Therapy is perfect for you if you are...

LOOKING TO IMPROVE YOUR RELATIONSHIP

Judith was angry at her husband, but rather than confronting him she kept her distance. Through EMDR, she was able to connect her feelings towards her husband to her feelings growing up in her family. She could see that her husband was not the true source of her hurt. She was able to truly express her anger, set boundaries, and then forgive her parents and improved her relationship with her husband by seeing him from a more loving and accepting perspective.

OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Fear of public speaking has plagued Jeff since childhood. He stuttered as a child and was holding his career back by not stepping into leadership positions where he would be speaking in a larger room in front of people. Through EMDR, he resolved his childhood insecurity and also connected to a more confident, outgoing, and less carful part of himself that allowed him to show up at work with more confidence and charisma.

BRINGING UP YOUR CONFIDENCE

Lorence felt he had to make others happy and was afraid of asserting himself. EMDR helped him identify and release some beliefs he formed when he was young that came from his experiences with teachers and friends. He had the belief that he didn’t matter and that he would be punished if he expressed himself He let those beliefs go and started experimenting with full expression at work, in his marriage, and with friends. He began to see that people responded to him way better than he expected. They liked the new more assertive him.

OVERCOMING YOUR ANXIETY

Sabrina feared getting together with people because of Covid. Her therapist  used EMDR to desensitize her fear and connect her to how she used to be so she could take reasonable risks to see people without being consumed by anxiety.

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