The brain, like any other injured part of the body, naturally wants to heal. However, a block or imbalance as the result of a traumatic event, or multiple traumatic events, may cause an emotional wound to continue to fester, causing severe suffering.

Once the block or imbalance is gone, healing resumes.

A healthy brain adapts quickly by communicating between specific parts of the brain: the amygdala (your fight or flight reflex) communicates with the hippocampus (the memory and emotion center, including memories about safety and danger), which then communicates with the prefrontal cortex (the “smart brain” that analyzes and controls behavior). While for some people, difficult or traumatic experiences are managed and resolved spontaneously, for others information processing is maladaptive and the traumatic memory gets stuck in the amygdala.

EMDR & The Brain

EMDR therapy helps the brain’s information processing system to heal by putting traumatic memories in chronological order. In successful EMDR treatment, the traumatic experience becomes a neutralized memory of the past and the fight, flight, or freeze response from the original event is resolved. The client’s maladaptive processing system begins to heal, and future difficulties become easier to handle. Click below to learn more about EMDR and how it can help you on your healing journey.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a highly effective, evidence-based trauma treatment, grounded in neuroscience, which has been proven to help people heal from the symptoms of emotional distress that are the result of trauma and other disturbing life experiences. Multiple studies have shown that individuals completing EMDR therapy have the healing benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference.

The mind and brain seem to heal from psychological trauma similar to how the body recovers from physical trauma. Imagine the process of an injury healing. The brain naturally wants to heal, but if there is a block or imbalance as the result of a traumatic event, the emotional wound continues to fester and cause severe suffering. Once the block or imbalance is gone, healing resumes.

A healthy brain adapts quickly by communicating between specific parts of the brain: the amygdala (your fight or flight reflex) communicates with the hippocampus (the memory and emotion center, including memories about safety and danger), which then communicates with the prefrontal cortex (the “smart brain” that analyzes and controls behavior). But for some people, difficult or traumatic experiences are managed and resolved spontaneously. For other people, the information processing is maladaptive and the traumatic memory gets stuck in fight, flight, or freeze (amygdala).

EMDR therapy helps the brain’s information processing system to heal by putting memories in chronological order. The experience is remembered and the fight, flight, or freeze response from the original event is resolved. The client’s maladaptive processing system begins to heal, and future difficulties become easier to handle.

EMDR is proven to be an excellent therapy to help people recover from single-incident traumas, such as car accidents, being a victim of or witness to a violent crime, sexual assault, or natural disasters. EMDR can also help individuals who have suffered multiple incidents of trauma over their lifetime (referred to as complex trauma), including adverse childhood experiences (immigration, divorce, poverty, war, chronic illness, neglect, and abuse) and pre-verbal trauma (such as maternal post-partum depression).

EMDR helps people who suffer from anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias; sleep disturbances, chronic illness, and chronic pain; depression and suicidal ideations; eating disorders, substance abuse, and other behavioral addictions; death, grief, loss, betrayal, infidelity, and other relational ruptures; performance anxiety.

As with any form of psychotherapy, there may be a temporary increase in distress as unresolved memories emerge. Some clients may experience reactions during a treatment session that neither they nor the therapist may have anticipated, including a high level of emotion or physical sensation. Following each EMDR session, the processing of material may continue, and other insights, dreams, memories, feelings, etc., may emerge as part of the process.

Some people with preexisting illnesses such as epilepsy will need to have a medical doctor approve of treatment.

Let Your Healing Journey Begin