Episode on Episodes: What to Expect from EMDR, and How it Could Help Break your Trauma Loop.
Research by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States estimates that:
One in five Americans have been sexually molested as a child.
One in four have been beaten by a parent to the point of a mark being left on their body.
One in three couples engage in physical violence.
And one in four of us grew up with an alcoholic relative.
You don’t need to be a refugee, rape victim or a war veteran to be classified as traumatised. Having no one turn up to your birthday party or being forgotten at after school club will do.
When a traumatising ‘thing’ happens to us as children (and trust me, we’re ALL traumatised), it can sometimes be a little difficult to process. Many of us end up with a part of us frozen in that time and pace. I will flinch when someone raises their voice at me, just as a very good friend of mine is filled with bodily horror when he sees brown envelopes (having gotten to know bailiffs quite well as a wee boy).
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) was originally ‘prescribed’ to help resolve specific isolated incidents: Car accidents, Rape, sexual or physical abuse, war. Traumas where you’ve been frozen in time, and need help processing and unfreezing.
Yet, upon revealing my abandonment and security issues with my practitioner, he said it is possible to adapt the method for more banal and ongoing traumas. He’s now sorting me out for both.Huzzah!
EMDR can be for the many, not the few (and is proven more effective than Jeremy Corbyn was as a change maker).
So, What is it?
A bit like gravity, it was discovered as a happy accident. EMDR started with a walk in the park.
Dr. Francine Shapiro had just received unsettling news, and she was walking, trying to calm. She thought of the research about eye movements, knowing that when people think of upsetting things while moving their eyes from side to side, crossing the mid-line, they begin to settle. She did it, and was surprised to feel relief. This walk was the beginning of EMDR.
We know a bit more about it since Dr. Shapiro investigated.
Because EMDR mimics REM sleep through the moving of the eyes back and forth in a rapid manner. It’s done so, so that it “take[s] advantage of sleep-dependent processes, which may be blocked or ineffective in PTSD sufferers, to allow effective memory processing and trauma resolution” (Van Der Kolk, p. 263)
In short, EMDR involves moving the eyes from right to left rapidly while recalling traumatic events. You’re awake, conscious, and you’re in a safe space with a professional to address them, and hopefully override or change your perspective or the way you feel about what happened. This may be an oversimplification, but EMDR allows you to move a traumatic memory from your brain’s smoke alarm (amygdala) to its filing cabinet (hippocampus).
WHAT TO EXPECT:
PHASE ONE: Planning
So, you find a practitioner, either through referral or on tinterweb, and talk to them about why you think it may be helpful.
They probably say ‘EMDR can help you’ (because it’s really effective in both chronic and acute traumas), and you start the process.
You plan what you aim to work on, and follow through with it for 6 or more sessions. You don’t need to go into ALL the detail: EMDR works for people who cannot necessarily speak or may be too ashamed to vocalise what happened.
PHASE TWO: Safety first.
Your practitioner helps you envision and cultivate your ‘safe space’. This is so you’ve got somewhere safe to mentally go to in case you’re re-triggered by a traumatic memory. If you ever feel in danger during EMDR, you can be taken back to this safe space.
You either do tapping motions on your chest, or you follow their finger to get you there mentally.
My safe space: Kenwood Ladies Pond in Hamsptead Heath.
I envision the feeling of cold envelop my whole body as I jump in. The sound of swans and other ladies say things like ‘you know, they can break your arm if they wanted to’; the smell of moss and ground on the banks; the sight of happy ladies, milling about in their sacred space.
Plus, it’s just very calming. There are no men, and you just don’t feel like your shit’s going to get stolen.
By envisioning a safe space through the lens of your five senses, you’re brought into the present. Your brain’s smoke detector learns thatyou’re not in danger.
PHASE THREE: The EMDR itself.
Often, you work up to the traumatic memory. I decided to go straight for the jugular, and picked the most distressing scene I had, given I felt safe enough to do so, and I’d worked on it before. It’s entirely your call.
You picture a scene. You rate your level of distress at the start, and then you follow the rave fingers that go from side to side. You simply let your mind wander; it knows what it needs to do.
From there, I’ve found my brain plays the scene like a film. Sometimes, it’s true to the memory. Other times, it rewrites a better or an alternative outcome. Your brain knows what it needs to do.
I personally like to talk through things; it helps me work things out. It’s really worth repeating: EMDR does not require you to divulge what happened to you; it still works for people who might be embarrassed or ashamed of their past experiences, or suffer from difficulties in communicating. It’s a therapy where you don’t have to talk about your problems.
Throughout the process, my therapist stops to check in on you, and evaluate on a scale of 1–7, how traumatised you feel, and how true the feelings you identified at the start feel to you. In my case, it’s often reversing guilt, blame and shame: I am unlovable’ or ‘It was my fault’
Sometimes you have a measured drop in stress response, sometimes it takes a little longer. Sometimes you access other traumas and experiences which are related, that your mind has worked hard to forget.
This is really handy in working through your triggers. I sometimes describe a scenario that sets me off in a state of hypoarousal and panic (eg. I sometimes assume that if someone hasn’t text me back, it means they’re dead) and we can work backwards to understand what caused it (the death of my best friend at university).
PHASE FOUR… AAND BACK IN THE ROOM!
Once you’ve followed your therapists rave fingers for a good 40 minutes, your therapist brings you back into the room with breathing exercises and a possibly body scan. This is so your body is reminded that you’re in the present moment, and you’ve just been through old stuff: you’re not in danger anymore.
We always go there at the end of each session to finish off, so you can return to the world in peace. Nothing worse than getting too spooked by the veg aisle in Tesco. You can use this time to work out where you want to go next. Sometimes you deviate from your original plans, and that’s okay.
Word of advice to contact lens wearers: make sure your eyeballs are well lubed. Things get quite dry, even if you do cry.
WHY IT’S SO REVOLUTIONARY
- According to the EMDR Institute, as many as 90% of trauma survivors appeared to have no PTSD symptoms after just three sessions. That’s wild.
- You don’t need to like or be able to understand your practitioner. Van Der Volk sites cases where he’s performed EMDR on patients who are foreign to him, and have no comprehension of English.
- I’m going to hammer this one: It’s really private. EMDR does not require you to talk about your experiences, so it’s perfect for people who struggle vocalising their experiences, or cannot speak.
- It puts you in the driving seat of your traumatic experiences, and that’s often a big step in processing your traumas. You shift from being someone who’s had something done to, and towards someone who’s experienced something that’s just a bit shit.
- It seems to go to places talking therapy can’t reach. I can’t explain this, but it really does. Like a bit of a magical fast track at the airport.
PRICE
You may be surprised to hear, but EMDR can cost the same amount that regular psychotherapy costs.While your practitioner needs training in it, many integrative psychotherapists have it in their wheelhouse of skills. Both my EMDR and psychotherapy sit ins come in at £70 a session.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
EMDR is quite possibly the most effective thing I’ve tried out so far in treating acute trauma. I suspect it’s brilliance in treating my chronic banal childhood trauma is in part to do with the fact that it’s built on the foundations of two years of talking therapy.
It’s one of the few things in this series that I’d say is ‘measurable’. You leave exhausted, and you sleep like a housecat afterwards. Self-care is a must: it’s tough.
But it’s so worth it. You leave no longer defined by being a veteran, or a regular kid who was forgotten at after school club. Instead, you’re a step closer to yourself.
In the case of PTSD, time doesn’t heal the the pain. Bessel Van Der Volk’s research shows that a PTSD survivor re-lives the trauma as they would do as if it were happening. It’s the ultimate form of being held hostage by your past.
EMDR is a real lifeline though. I, for one, no longer have nightmares about being attacked by a half lobster, half cockroach creatures.
For that, I am forever grateful.
NB: If you’re not convinced, here’s another wicked article on someone’s experiences: https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2020/07/9884329/what-to-expect-after-emdr-trauma-therapy)
If you’d like help with how to choose the right therapy for you, I’ve written about it previously here: https://sarabarqawi.medium.com/episodes-on-episodes-psychotherapy-4f066842e3ad
For support with PTSD, contact PTSD UK or call the Anxiety UK infoline on 03444 775 774. Anxiety UK also offers a text service on 07537 416 905.
