EMDR
EMDR is a highly effective form of therapy for trauma. It can help reduce the emotional and physical impact of traumatic experiences, without requiring you to go into exhaustive detail about what happened.
I chose to specialise in EMDR because it is so effective, does not require years and years of commitment, and can be done in a very respectful way. Clients don't have to go into the minutiae of what happened to them or what they have seen. They are required to connect to the memory though, but I can help them to manage their response to what’s happened .
EMDR follows clear stages. First we do an assessment of your current difficulties and what events you think have contributed to them. I’ll also ask you a series of questions as well, to see if EMDR is right for you at this time.
Next you’ll learn some skills to help you feel calmer, and there is an expectation that you’ll practise them a bit. We agree an order of work. This is an important collaborative step. We then ‘process’, either by doing eye movements or hand taps, depending on what’s more suitable for you.
I don’t use EMDR software and do EMDR in a very orthodox way, primarily because software can go wrong and, in my mind, you just don’t need it.
EMDR is hard work. I see the exhaustion in the faces of the people that I’m working with, but it is frequently astonishing. Quite quickly, experiences feel flatter and much further in the past, as though they’ve been pulled away and are behind you. What is also so important about the process is that your role becomes re-contextualised in a very profound way. You may even remember extra details which contribute to this, leading to far less self-blame, guilt and shame. It’s not easy, but it is effective. A lot of those I see also just find it really really interesting.
Online EMDR: Along with many others, I gained my proficiency in this during COVID. That said, online does have some advantages. EMDR is enormously draining. If you do the sessions at home, you can rest afterwards. I do recommend that you don’t leap into driving a car or onto a bike for a bit. It’s a gruelling process so some time to ground after is a good idea. You may even need to sleep. All you need is a laptop and a stable WiFi connection. I’ll send a zoom invite and we go from there.
You can find more about EMDR here:
