Trauma & EMDR
Whether you experienced a single traumatic incident or have encountered several traumatic events in your lifetime, the effects of trauma can linger for years and often undermine your ability to feel safe and secure after the traumatic incident is over.
Our brains store and process traumatic memories in ways that make them seem more immediate and vivid for people who’ve experienced a traumatic event. This is why sometimes people feel like they can’t “move on” from trauma and why they sometimes have difficulty with trust, control, and self-esteem after they have experienced trauma.
How can EMDR help?
EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing) is an evidence-based therapy technique that helps your brain reprocess the traumatic event and “rewire” it as a regular memory. This gives people who have experienced trauma the ability to recall the event with little to no emotional disturbance, which assists the healing process.
Some of the effects of trauma and symptoms of post-traumatic stress are:
- Nightmares
- Flashbacks
- Negative changes in beliefs
- Avoiding situations that remind you of the event
- Difficulty concentrating
