EMDR Therapy
(Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)
What is EMDR?
This is an innovative new treatment method that enables you to overcome trauma and specific problems, without having to engage in talking therapy, so you do not need to discuss your trauma. It’s based on a new understanding of how we process trauma and difficulty, and it draws upon extensive research.
EMDR is specifically used to treat trauma events, flashbacks, or episodes and experiences you cannot get out of your mind, such as a car accident or a specific painful memory. It works by clearing your neural pathways using very specific techniques. I trained as a specialised EMDR practitioner with EMDR works www.emdrworks.org
It is very often trauma that prevents us from being able to be here in the moment, and a successful EMDR treatment can remove the blocks to our own self-aware presence. If we can remove this trauma, then we do not need to be the product of our life story! EMDR will also help you develop reliable resources in your body and help you feel strong and safe.
EMDR can be used as a treatment alongside regular psychotherapy, for example you can take a short break from your psychotherapy to attend EMDR sessions. It can be used to treat psychological trauma such as childhood abuse or neglect, natural disaster, assault, RTA and workplace accidents.
How EMDR Therapy works
EMDR seems to directly influence the way that the brain functions. It helps to restore normal ways of dealing with problems (i.e information processing). Following successful EMDR treatment, memories of such events are no longer painful when brought to the mind.
Old disturbing memories can be stored in the brain in isolation; they get locked into the nervous system with the original images, sounds, thoughts and feelings involved. The old distressing material just keeps getting triggered over and over again. This prevents learning/healing from taking place. In another part of your brain, you already have most of the information you need to resolve this problem; the two just cannot connect. Once EMDR starts, a linking takes place. New information can come to mind and resolve the old problems. This may be what happens spontaneously in REM or dream sleep when eye movements help to process unconscious material.
EMDR is an individual treatment delivered one or two times per week for a total of 6-12 sessions. It follows a specific treatment protocol, with minimal talking.
This is not an attachment-based therapeutic relationship, and there is not space to discuss your feelings or life events, and so a series of EMDR sessions is usually offered in conjunction with psychotherapy, either with me or another psychotherapist.
Fees: £80 (per 50 minute session), and £120 for the initial assessment session.
“I originally consulted Julie due to anxeity which had developed as a result of a health problem. In the course of my therapy she introduced me to EMDR, which we have used together in our sessions and I have also practiced at home with great success. It is a remarkably simple yet effective technique and I will continue to use it regularly to help manage my anxiety; I would highly recommend it to anyone who is having difficulty coping with the stresses we encounter in life today.”