What is EMDR?

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy that helps people heal from trauma and distressing life experiences by changing how the brain stores traumatic memories, making them less upsetting and impactful. It involves recalling difficult memories while engaging in bilateral stimulation, like following a therapist's finger with your eyes, which helps the brain reprocess the event, reducing its emotional intensity. 

 

How does EMDR work?

​EMDR works on the basis that traumatic memories can become "stuck" in the brain, causing intense emotions and physical sensations. Our understanding is that the brain has a natural healing process that can resolve this, but it needs a helping hand to kickstart this process. The bilateral stimulation, through eye movements, unlocks the brain and allows the natural healing process to occur, without the need for exploring things in too much depth as in other talking therapies. 

​

​​What can EMDR help with?

By helping to resolve stuck memories and improve overall wellbeing, EMDR is well-evidenced for PTSD and trauma, but is also highly effective for:

• Complex PTSD

• Anxiety & Panic Attacks

• Depression

• OCD

• Phobias

• Grief & Complicated Grief

• Addictions

• Self-Esteem Issues 

​

Who is EMDR for?

Anyone who feels that past events are impacting negatively on their present wellbeing, and who wishes to process and heal from painful memories, feel calmer emotions, more stability in mood and better connection to others, the world and life in general. EMDR may be a preferred approach if people find it difficult to talk in depth about past events, as detailed discussions are not necessary as in other talking therapies. Sessions can be 50 or 90 minutes long and there is no between session work, making it a good choice for people who have limited availability outside of session time. 

​

What can I expect?

Initial sessions will be us gaining an overview of what brings you to therapy, general history taking and making a treatment plan for how many events you wish to process and how the processing method works in practice. During processing sessions, you focus on the chosen distressing memory while I guide your eye movements (or we can use other methods, such as tapping or tones). With repeated sets of this bilateral stimulation, the memory's negative charge reduces, changing from a painful, intrusive memory to a neutral historical one, allowing your central nervous system to heal and you to feel calmer and more connected to the present. EMDR does not invalidate or rewrite any experiences - the event that happened is still the same and your feelings about it remain true and valid - but it allows the brain to become unstuck, integrate new information to the memory and reduces the disturbance and negative impact that the memories cause you in the here and now. Later sessions focus on producing a tailored wellbeing plan to maintain your mental health, what early warning signs to look out for that could mean a dip in your mood, and a specific action plan to get yourself back on track. ​

​

Why choose me?

I have a special personal and professional interest in trauma and PTSD, which has lead me to be an avid fan of EMDR since my career began. The research has shown it time and again to be just as, if not more, effective than other therapies and the method can produce results much faster than other forms of therapy. Now moving through the training for this therapy, I have witnessed and experienced myself the amazing effects EMDR can produce within a short space of time. I offer EMDR online making it accessible from the comfort of your own personal space. 

​

​

​