EMDR Therapy
Are You Having Trouble Moving Past A Distressing Event Or Experience?
Do you often feel on edge, hyper-alert to real or imagined signs of “danger”?
Are you quick to anger and suspect (or are told) that you are overreacting?
Are you flooded by intrusive memories?
Are you anxious or irritable and can’t pinpoint why?
Do you have trouble sleeping or experience nightmares?
Do you find yourself trying to numb with alcohol or pot?
The thing about trauma is that it hijacks you. Logically, you can tell yourself you’re safe, but your body is screaming danger. It can feel like you’re going crazy.
Unresolved trauma can impact everyday life and relationships in so many ways. You may experience anxiety or panic attacks. You may feel like you’re always in chaos, going from one crisis to another. You may feel depressed or moody. You may find it hard to communicate and get easily flooded. You may find it hard to trust others or yourself. It may feel like you zone out when you need to be present. Perhaps you suffer from low self esteem, which can affect jobs, school, relationships.
Whatever your experience is, when trauma is unresolved, your ability to live the fulfilling life you desire suffers. Trauma therapy can help you make sense of and process your experience so that you can regain your sense of safety and take back your life.
Chances Are You’ve Experienced Trauma Or Know Someone Who Has
Trauma is all too common. More than half of women and men (6 in 10 men and 5 in 10 women) have dealt with some kind of trauma in their lives. And more than 8 million adults suffer from the effects of PTSD. Trauma does not discriminate--it can impact anyone from any type of community. What’s more, the same event can affect two people completely differently depending on their backgrounds and ability to tolerate distress.
Trauma can take many shapes. Most people think of trauma as resulting from a major incident such as a natural disaster, accident, or war. Because of this, many people don’t think their experiences warrant specialized trauma treatment. What we often don’t realize and are beginning to pay more attention to is that “small t’s” that so many of us have experienced such as childhood bullying, growing up in chaotic families, emotionally abusive or toxic relationships, discovering an affair, and stressful divorces can also cause trauma symptoms that can seriously impact our functioning.
A compassionate and skilled trauma therapist can help you calm the symptoms resulting from these and other traumatic life events, whether they happened yesterday or 30 years ago.
EMDR Therapy Is A Safe, Compassionate Space To Deeply Heal Without Having to Relive the Trauma
Eye Movement Disensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) with a me lets you address these events in a safe way that won’t retraumatize you. It is shown to be effective in reducing, if not eliminating, trauma and PTSD symptoms and increasing quality of life. You won’t forget what happened, but after treatment you will not be as activated and the triggers that now hijack your body and mind will no longer control you.
Often, people have been burying their story for years because they’re afraid of having to relive it by talking about it. The truth is, effective trauma treatment doesn’t require you to go into detail about your past to allow you to heal. I’ll make sure you feel safe and will pay close attention to you to help you to not get too activated. When we begin working together, I’ll prepare you with tools to help you to self-sooth so that we can very carefully explore your trauma and its impact on your current functioning and relationships.
From here, together we’ll begin to prepare for EMDR and in a few sessions will begin processing the trauma with bilateral stimulation. I use a light bar, where your eyes will follow the lights back and forth while keeping in mind the traumatic memory (but you won’t have to talk about it). I will guide you through the entire process and your mind will automatically do the work. Depending on your individual needs, I might also incorporate some somatic work (Trauma Resiliency Model), mindfulness and trauma-informed talk therapy (which means I’m careful to not re-traumatize you)
EMDR Is Usually Effective in Far Fewer Sessions Than Traditional Therapy
EMDR is an extensively researched, effective therapy method proven to help people recover from trauma and PTSD. For most clients EMDR therapy can be effective in far fewer sessions than other types of therapy. It does not require talking in detail about the distressing issue, but actually allows the brain to do the work in processing the traumatic memories. More information can be found at https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/
Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM) is inspired by the work of Dr. Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing. TRM offers concrete skills to reduce symptoms of traumatic stress. The goal of treatment is to educate clients about the nervous system and teach specific skills to help stabilize the body/mind. More information can be found at https://www.traumaresourceinstitute.com
Whatever has happened to you, it’s not your fault. Trauma therapy has come a long way in recent years and I’m trained in the most up-to-date methods proven to help you to regain peace and calm and to live the life you deserve.
Maybe you still have questions about trauma therapy…
Talking about my experience makes things worse.
It’s true, talking about trauma can make it worse and be retraumatizing. That’s why it’s important that you work with a trained trauma therapist. I am trained to carefully address the trauma so that you are not retraumatized in session. Further, methods such as EMDR and TRM prepare you to regulate your nervous system and don’t require you to talk in detail about the traumatic event or events.
I’ve never lived through a war or disaster, my experience doesn’t count.
While “big T” traumas are known to cause PTSD, “small t” traumas such as interpersonal conflict, infidelity, or divorce can also cause a significant amount of distress and trouble with emotional functioning that can prevent you from living your best life. They are often overlooked or rationalized as being an over-reaction, which just invalidates your painful experience.
Trauma therapy sounds like it’s time consuming and I’m busy, I don’t have time.
Oftentimes when someone is experiencing symptoms of trauma or PTSD, they actually end up wasting a lot of time. They waste time in not living their best, most fulfilling life. They also might literally waste time because trauma can cause you to have difficulty focusing, feel scattered and disorganized, experience anxiety and panic or to become depressed and lose motivation and energy. Trauma therapy can reduce or eliminate these symptoms and often can do so in a shorter period of time than traditional talk therapy.
Ready To Finally Find Out What Kind of Life You’re Capable Of?
Don’t let trauma take away the best parts of yourself. You deserve to live fully. Contact me for a free phone consultation, so you can learn how trauma therapy can help you to reclaim the person you really are.
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