The breakthrough therapy helps your brain heal itself
Nicole Audrey Spector is a writer, editor, and author based in Los Angeles by way of Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Vogue, the Atlantic, Vice, The New Yorker and more. She's a frequent contributor to NBC News and Publishers Weekly. Her 2013 debut novel, "Fifty Shades of Dorian Gray" received laudatory blurbs from the likes of Fred Armisen and Ken Kalfus, and was published in the US, UK, France, and Russia.
Recently, I’ve been hearing more about EMDR, which stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. This is likely because celebrities such ashave been publicly sharing their transformative experiences with EMDR, which is endorsed by the World Health Organization, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the American Psychological Association.
Preparation: Education on EMDR. The therapist explains specific techniques and makes sure you are prepared emotionally for reprocessing.Desensitization: Following your therapist’s cues — whether it’s finger movements, tapping or sounds — to reprocess the target memory until it is no longer distressing.Body scan: Guidance in a mindfulness, grounding or relaxation technique by the therapist to ensure that you can conjure the target event without feeling tension in the body.
With EMDR, you don’t wipe out the traumatic memory entirely. Instead, you become desensitized to it so that it fails to muster anger, sorrow, fear, panic or any of the other upsetting emotions or thoughts it used to trigger. During an EMDR session , your brain is doing a lot of intense work and you’ll likely experience some difficult emotions. This often leads to fatigue after sessions. Never plan an EMDR session when you have something to do afterward, like on your lunch break, and always make some time after for rest and self-care.It’s critical to be assessed by your therapist and, if you have any medical conditions, by your primary care physician, too.