Stress Management

When you experience a stressful event, your brain can keep you stuck there, still experiencing the emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations.  Even if the stressful event happened many years ago.

A type of therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (EMDR) can help you to escape this stressful event and learn to live fully in the present.

EMDR in brief
EMDR helps people to heal from stressful experiences.  The idea is that sometimes things get stuck in the brain, and with the help of EMDR, the blockage is removed, and the brain starts to heal. 

When I use EMDR, I stimulate your brain’s natural healing system to resolve the stressful experiences.  The stressful experiences are resolved because, with the help of EMDR, your brain can finally process those stressful experiences.  You are no longer overwhelmed by those experiences.

EMDR in more detail
These are the three parts of your brain that communicate with each other -   

• Amygdala – Your alarm system, telling you when something is wrong
• Hippocampus – Holding memories about things like what is dangerous and what is safe
• Prefrontal cortex – This controls your emotion and behaviour

In response to a stressful event, your brain tends to tell you to do one of three things –

• Fight
• Flee
• Freeze

If your brain has not had a chance to process a stressful event, your brain can get stuck in one of those three responses (fight, flight or freeze).

EMDR involves moving your eyes from left to right, a process similar to REM sleep.  If you don’t like this eye movement, we can use ‘tappers’ (a small machine that you hold in your hands and sends subtle pulsing sensations from left to right).

EMDR helps your brain to process those stressful experiences, so they are not stuck in a way that overwhelms you.  As a result, you change your beliefs about the event and about yourself.  For example –

• Before EMDR – You may have viewed the event as overwhelming, and you may have viewed yourself as ‘unsafe’ or ‘defective’
• After EMDR – You may no longer view the event as overwhelming, because it is in the past, and you are not vividly reliving the events.  And you may view yourself as ‘safe now’ or ‘effective and resourceful now’.

Before any reprocessing takes place, we will also work hard to identify and strengthen any ground and calming resources, so that you never feel overwhelmed.

I am a member of EMDR International Association, and they have put together a video to help you understand EMDR. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about this.
​
If you have been suffering and you need help with this, get in contact today.  A confidential initial telephone call is free, and you can book this online. 
 
Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist in Ridgewood, New Jersey
www.exploretransform.com