HOW DOES IT WORK?

During an EMDR therapy session, an EMDRIA trained therapist works with the client to assist them in identifying the traumatic target moment or incident, having them also identify the negative thoughts, emotions, and body sensations which are all associated with the incident. As the therapist assists the client in bringing this all back up to the surface the client is then asked to gauge the level of distress on a scale of 0 to 10. This becomes the baseline from which the therapist will begin to work. The therapist then begins bilateral stimulation, either by eye movements or tactile pulsars, in order to activate the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) cycle. 

The more intensely the client focuses on the memory, the emotions, and/or body sensations the easier it becomes for the memory to come to life. As the processing begins, the client is instructed to notice everything as it resurfaces without attempting to find reasoning, make logical sense of, answer the question “why”, or try to get a sense of justice from it, as this will cause the prefrontal cortex to re-engage and impede from the ability to process/encode the information into the Adaptive Neural Network where it belongs. Up until that moment, the prefrontal cortex has served as a filter keeping this information from being processed, while storing it within the maladaptive neural network (the emotional center of the brain) causing the client to find themselves in a perpetually stuck state. 

As quick and vibrant images arise during the therapy session, they are processed through bilateral stimulation, resulting in the memory and the emotion to be split apart from each other. The memory is then stored within the Adaptive Neural Network, and the painful emotions are processed out as the emotional charge is depleted resulting in a shift in thoughts, perception, emotions, and interaction with others.