106: Healing from Trauma and How EMDR Might Help | Wynn Helms

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Hey there. Welcome. Welcome. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. I'm a licensed psychotherapist. I'm a life and relationship coach and a motivational speaker, and I can work with you virtually to help you get unstuck. Today's topic is about EMDR and getting over your trauma. So many women, so many men have had issues with past trauma. And today I'm talking with my guest, certified EMDR psychotherapist. Win Helms, and we are going to talk about what is trauma, how do you get over it, and how can a little-known— some of you guys might know about it— therapy called EMDR, how can that help you treat your trauma? But first up, my Superwoman win and Superwoman fail. So for my fail, I am taking a case home with me, and I don't mean physically, I mean psychologically. And I usually don't do that. And I suggest to anybody working in a healing profession, anybody who has clients or patients that they work with, to really work hard on not taking things home with them because it doesn't serve your patients, it doesn't serve you. And right now I'm taking something home. I have a couple who I've been working with for years and I just am not getting through to him. I realize that I am very much invested in their relationship working. And as I think about it, not that I'm not generally with all of my clients, but there's a professional investment and then there's an emotional investment. And right now I'm emotionally invested. And as I think about it, I realize that probably it just hits home. Mm-hmm. Because in many ways, their marriage reminds me of the marriage my husband and I used to have, and I desperately want them to have the happy ending. And I think about my father. He was an ER physician, and I remember just a number of times he took some cases home with him, and they were usually ones that hit home. I remember him coming home, and I don't know if we were at the dinner table, but he was talking, and there was a young man his age— my dad was probably in his Late 30s or early 40s at that time, and he died. And my father said, "I couldn't save him. He's a dad. He's a husband, and I couldn't save him." And I know that haunted my dad, and probably not until today do I really feel that same feeling of I can't save them. And I guess my fail is that I'm not letting it go because ultimately it's their work to do, not mine. I just facilitate it, and ultimately, just like with my father. That was that man's time. He's not God. I'm not God. I can't fix everything. So I recognize I'm being super vulnerable right now, and this is really just a processing thing for me too. But my fail is that I'm letting it get to me, but yet that's also a reflection of my humanity. There does have to be that balance. I love my work. I love what I do. And of course, I want to see people get better. So, okay, we're going to talk about trauma today. Um, we have lots of, of interesting stuff. So I'm going to try to, try to lift up the mood a little bit here. My win, and this is a little mushy, but it's true. My win is that I have people in my life, my sister, my best friend Rosie, who will be completely honest with me and check me when I need to be checked. They will challenge me and they are not afraid to look at me and say, Zoe, you messed up. Zoe, that's not okay, or you're going down the wrong path. Sometimes my sister will challenge me and she'll say something like, is that what Dr. Zoe would tell you to do? And I'm like, shoot, don't use that woman against me. And I know that we can all speak into our lives so much easier than speaking into our own. But honestly, it would be a sad day in my life if I didn't have people who loved me tell me the truth. It's easy to find people who will tell you how great you are. I can go on Instagram for that every day, but to have people who will tell me when I'm messing up, who will challenge me, that's the best blessing in the world. And that is a super win that I've managed to cultivate that in my life. And if you don't have people in your life that are telling you the truth about you, even though sometimes it hurts, who wants to hear that? That's your new mission. Find people who will be honest with you and learn how to accept the constructive criticism. That's how we grow. When I am so excited to have you here to talk about kind of a difficult subject, but one that many women have experienced, and I'm sure have a lot of questions about. So I just wanted to kind of lay it out on the table, explain to my audience What trauma is, what we can do about it, should we get help, what it's not. So let's lay it all down, but first I want to ask you about your win and your fail. Let's introduce you a little bit to my audience.

Okay, well first of all, thank you for having me. Win and fail, well they're historical, let's start there. Some years ago, I came to Los Angeles to be an actress and I didn't know anyone here. It was quite the adventure to start out.

That's how a lot of people get to LA, right?

I think that's true. I certainly was not alone.

Yeah.

So I got here and was blessed enough to get 3 agents— one for theater, one for commercials, and one for television. I don't know if they do it that way anymore, but nothing happened for about a year. Nothing happened. I had no auditions, nothing. One day, I just said, okay, God, let me know what's going on here. I really am lost. And I lost all 3 of my agents in 1 week.

Wow! How did that happen? They just all fired you? They were just like, we're done.

We gave you a try and now we're done with you. But I mean, that's the business. That's how it happens. And I thought, okay, very good. This means a new path for me. But I didn't know what that path was. So I thought, I'm gonna give myself 6 months to just do nothing, just to allow myself to work, make friends, get into Los Angeles community,

you

know, just be here. So I got a temp job at a human resources consulting agency. Yeah, really boring. It was beyond boring, but it helped me to meet people and get used to being in Los Angeles, as I said.

Mm-hmm.

And then something happened. There was a trauma happening in the organization. My department had a department head and he was having an affair, yes, with a woman in the other department. Everybody knew it. It was no secret at all. And it was not a secret that the woman he was having an affair with was adamant that if he ever had children, that she was not going to see him anymore. And then his wife got pregnant.

Oh.

That news spread like wildfire all over, all over the office. And it just occurred to me that people's lives are more important than the boring work that I'm doing. And I happened to be in therapy at the time, and I thought, huh, maybe this is something that would be interesting for me. And that's how I got started in therapy, and I love it. And yeah, that was my win to start a new career.

Wow, what an interesting segue. But I think that probably a lot of therapists really start their dive into psychology From people watching because people are darn interesting, aren't they?

They really are. They're interesting and I think coming from an actor's perspective where observing people is something that we do all the time. So yeah, it was maybe a logical next step, who knows?

It certainly was for you. So thank you for sharing your win and your fail and, you know, just as important as it is to understand other people in your life, I won't even say just as important, it's more important to understand us. Right?

Absolutely.

So that's why I want to talk about trauma and understanding it in your life and what to do about it. So let's first start with what in the world is trauma?

Well, trauma is an experience that is either injurious or painful and it can be anything, a loss of a person, a pet, people are going through these fires that we're having in Los Angeles right now, natural disasters, that kind of thing. And I say that with this in mind, anything can be a trauma.

Okay.

It's not the event that's the trauma, it's how the person perceives it.

Okay, so then here's the question. If anything can be a trauma, what's not trauma?

If you're experiencing loss of sleep, anxiety, depression, ruminating thoughts about the incident, then it's very likely that it's a trauma and you're having a traumatic experience trying to move through it and resolve the issue.

Mm-hmm.

And like I said, that can be anything.

So your experience of trauma is really demonstrated by the symptoms that show up in your life.

Right, after the event.

So then what's not trauma? Because a lot of people use that word, we throw that word just like we throw the word narcissist around.

And depression.

And depression. We throw that word traumatized and I really want someone who might be wondering, am I? You know, what's going on here? What's not? What's not trauma?

Well, there are big T traumas and there are little t traumas.

Okay.

I'll just start with the big T traumas, which are things like being in a war zone or having your house burned down, as I said before, being raped, having a divorce, having a pet or a person die. Those are big T traumas where you will almost necessarily need to seek out help either from friends or for a therapist to get past the fact that you've experienced something that is not normal.

Right.

Something that is out of the range of your normal living situation. Now, little-t traumas are the ones that a lot of us— I think what you're talking about are the ones that we all go through. A humiliating experience, feeling guilty about something, if you're dismissed from your friend group, that kind of things are small-t traumas. And depending on how you have been raised and your experiences from your past, Those kinds of traumas can be just as difficult as the big T traumas.

Well, I think that's so important for you to say because I've seen that both in my life and watching other people and especially my clients, that something that could be horrific to one person, that would bring them to their knees, that would take them out, you know, for weeks.

Yes.

Somebody else just breezes through like it's nothing. I mean, there's a concept, an idea of resiliency, but For sure.

Yes.

But it also makes me wonder sometimes, okay, so are they really dealing with that trauma so well? Did they even experience it as trauma, I think is maybe the first question, or is that just something that's not being dealt with or their defense mechanisms are so strong?

Well, I think the defense mechanisms come up because it was a traumatic experience. An example, let's say you have a 2-year-old and The 2-year-old gets left in the aisle of the grocery store and the parent is around the corner, you know, no big deal, but the 2-year-old thinks, I'm alone. I'm always going to be alone, and it's traumatizing for the child because they have no one there to support them. They think they're lost forever. Okay. The parent comes back. The child gets through it, whatever, but it could be that that experience takes on a bigger shape when the person gets older and they have issues with being abandoned, Feeling lost in the world, having no one to support them, if the issues of that traumatic experience are not dealt with. Now, an adult isn't going to remember the fact that they were traumatized as a 2-year-old, but when it shows up in other areas of their life, it's something that can be teased out in therapy when talking about the trauma that happened when they were a child.

Interesting. You know, I had 2 clients who went through the shooting in Vegas a number of years ago

and

Both of them experienced very similar things and the effects were very different, just like I said.

Did one of them get through it without any kind of trauma?

Pretty much. One of them was just like, yep, you know, that's life, that happens, I dealt with it. You know, the other one was just, you know, it was weeks and weeks and weeks. But I think what you just said is super important, is the story that you tell yourself. You know, so a little 2-year-old, Telling themselves something like, my parents got lost, versus, you know, a 2-year-old saying, my parents abandoned me. That story has a huge effect on how we experience anything.

Yeah, and if you're growing through your life thinking, huh, I don't understand why it is that when a friend leaves, or if I grow out of a friendship, say, why is this so traumatic for me? Why is this such a big deal? It can be tracked back to when the person was at a young age, a 2-year-old toddler, and was feeling abandoned by the parent. Those 2 things can be intertwined because all of our experiences and our feelings, all those things are connected,

right?

And part of what we don't experience is the seed, the core piece of trauma that happened first.

Well, we don't know about it necessarily. We don't recognize it.

Yeah, why would you think about that? There's, you know, there's no reason to.

Okay, so we kind of have an idea of maybe what trauma is and if you're listening, reality is it's different for everybody. So really the way that you can understand it in your life is how does it show up in daily life? How does a trauma issue that's not resolved show up?

Well, it shows up in a couple of different ways and once again, different for everybody, but I think the most important thing has to do with ruminating thoughts, thoughts about whatever it is that is anxiety-producing for you that shows up in ways that aren't— why am I feeling this way? Let's just, let's just say you're on a date, for those of you out there who are single. I'm single, so it came to mind. You're on a date or you think you're on a date and you're sitting in a restaurant, you're sitting in a restaurant waiting for this person to show up. This is a first date, by the way. You're sitting there waiting, feeling really embarrassed and alone. And you find out, well, you've been stood up. Let's just face it, the person is not coming. That could be traumatizing for someone.

Hmm.

If they've had issues with being abandoned, if they had issues from their past of, I'm slime, I'm not worth the time someone might take to come and see me. When all those negative thoughts come up and they are attributed to something that is relatively small-t trauma, it might be time to seek out help.

So when someone continues to have thoughts that are super, super negative, you're saying it might be time to seek out help?

Yeah, because it's not worth going through your life thinking that you are worthless about something that might be fixed through seeking out a professional to help you with it.

What are some other symptoms of trauma?

Let's see, one of them can be depression, feeling like you're— you can't get out of bed, You don't want to go to work, you don't want to hang out with friends, your life just seems like it's going down the tubes. If you're feeling depression to the point where you can pinpoint it back to a specific issue, you might be experiencing trauma.

I know often some of my clients who are dealing with a lot of trauma tend to sometimes be kind of hypervigilant, always kind of looking out and waiting for that next thing, you know, the thing to fall. Sometimes they experience nightmares.

Right. The hypervigilance can come in the form of social anxiety and not wanting to be in groups of people for fear of what they may think of you, the judgment that you may get from people. Not wanting to be around people can lead to isolation, which can lead to depression.

Or maybe sometimes having overdramatic response to something that might feel similar to, you know, when the trauma happened.

Tell me more about what you mean.

So let's take an example of a woman who was raped. So the guy who raped her had a certain type of tone or he did something, so she gets triggered when she's with another guy and he does something similar. So she has a response to it, although she's not actually in danger, but it triggered her.

Right. I had a client who was physically molested as a child by her stepfather, and the stepfather is still in her life as she's an adult because he's still married to her mother. They were having a dinner party, and for whatever reason, he went behind her in her chair and she got triggered.

Mm-hmm.

And she had a meltdown, and she wasn't sure why. She came in to find out why, and what we found out together is was that she never saw his face when she was being molested. So when he was close by in proximity, it triggered her to think about when she was a child and she was being molested.

Right, she couldn't see his face. That makes a lot of sense. So when we have trauma and we go to seek to get help, are we trying to get it gone or are we just trying to integrate it into our life?

Well, it's a good question and I think it's both. One of the things that— and we haven't spoken about EMDR, but one of the things that I try to do with my clients is to get them to recognize that this is a part of their history. This is their experience. It's a part of their life. It's not going away. However, with the work we do, we can get it so it's a memory instead of a trauma. Something that you think about and go, okay, yeah, that happened and that was bad for me.

But it doesn't have the same emotional and visceral impact. Okay. Okay. So you said something. EMDR. What's EMDR?

Let me start at the beginning. Francine Shapiro, about 30 years ago or something, was literally out walking and noticed that she was processing something, that her eyes were moving back and forth. And she's a researcher and a psychologist. She's just actually just passed a couple of months ago. It was curious to her, why is this happening, that I'm— my eyes are moving back and forth? And she went back and she studied it and did years of research and And 10 years later, we have EMDR, which is Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing. Don't say that too quickly. Which means basically this: it's a protocol. It's a type of therapy that is done within the session for a series of sessions. And what it is is bilateral stimulation, not necessarily eyes moving back and forth, but bilateral stimulation, which Works kind of like this. This is a very rudimentary explanation of what EMDR is, but it gets to the point. For instance, you remember the beginning of the recording of this taping. Big deal. It's not something that you're going to think about again.

Right now I will because you just reminded

me. That's probably true. But if for some reason you started recording this and there was an earthquake—

Ah.

It might be that you linked those 2 things.

Right. That's kind of like if you ask anybody, where were you at 9/11? Everybody remembers. If I ask you, where were you, you know, 9:10 in the morning? Who knows?

Right, exactly. I'm on my way to work, whatever. So what happens is when we are experiencing a trauma, both sides of our brain do not work together. All of the synapses and Electrons— and like I said, this is really rudimentary— both sides of our brain don't work in tandem. When we do have a memory, they do. So what happens is, in EMDR, we use the bilateral stimulation to help reintegrate both sides of the brain so that the trauma is less of a dramatic memory as opposed to just a regular memory.

So how do you do that?

There's a protocol. It's not that I give these pulsers to the client and they just sit there. What we do is we bring up an event that has been traumatic or something that has not been traumatic. For instance, we can use the earthquake experience. I ask the client to visualize a snapshot of what that event looks like for them. Just like, for instance, I have a snapshot of what it looked like for me walking in the door this morning to my office.

Mm-hmm.

I ask the person to think about that snapshot and ask them, How do they feel about themselves when they think about that snapshot? What's a negative core belief you have about that snapshot? I am not good enough.

Mm-hmm.

It'd be a negative core belief. Then I asked for a positive core belief, which is— it can be the opposite, it can be something totally different, like, I am really excellent in my work. Let's say like that. Then the next question has to do with, on a scale of 1 to 7, how much do you feel That you are an excellent person doing your work. For instance, 1 is it's a false statement, I'm not excellent. 7 is it's a very true statement, I am excellent. And whatever the answer is, let's just say it's in the middle, let's say it's a 5, that gets recorded. The next question has to do with the feelings associated with that snapshot. How do you feel when you think about that picture? I feel very sad. I feel anxious. I feel nervous. Whatever it is, that also gets recorded.

And so are you doing something with the eyes?

At this point, we're just talking.

Oh, okay. So you just go through the memory?

Mm-hmm. You go through the memory and then at the end of the protocol— there are a couple more, but I'll skip to the end— I ask the person to sit in a kind of a comfortable position because what I'm finding is that we lodge a lot of tension in our body when it comes to anxiety and we want to be able to isolate it. My belief is that we have a mind-body-spirit connection, and what happens is we're on fast-forward our whole lives whenever we're doing things, and to sit still, we allow ourselves to find out exactly where we are in the present, and that means what we're thinking, feeling, and connecting both the head and the body.

Mm-hmm, which is why I found a lot of my clients have difficulty sitting still, because when we sit still, A lot comes up. When we're busy, we can push it all down.

Which is why we stay busy, because who wants to feel all that sadness and grief? Of course, yeah. No, that's not— it's a lot of stillness involved. That's when I start the bilateral stimulation. And by that, I mean I have pulsers, one in each hand, and there's sort of a little buzz, buzz, buzz, which happens. That bilateral stimulation is replicated with the eye movement, which is what was originally used. Some therapists use their finger that goes back and forth. There's a light bar with a light that goes back and forth. The pulsers, it does the same thing.

So something about moving those eyes back and forth is, as you talk about the trauma, is helping you reprocess it in your brain in a different way.

Reprocess it, reintegrate the information in a different kind of way so that it's not a way for you to think, oh my goodness, I'm in trouble. I'm in a traumatic situation.

Excellent. So this is just obviously one way of treating trauma. EMDR is known to be specific for trauma. That being said, it's still a relatively new therapy that hasn't been well researched.

Right. There are people that think that it does very little.

Well, I think the research that's, you know, present is showing that maybe— I should say the efficacy rate is maybe about 30%. Now, That's quite low. However, if you go in and you actually, you know, have a result of being able to integrate your trauma and not have all of those symptoms, it's certainly worth it.

Yes.

So I would say for someone who is experiencing a lot of trauma, go to therapy.

Absolutely.

Try therapy, see how that goes. If that's not helpful or you're not getting the results that you want or need, then this is definitely a therapy to try. It certainly isn't going to be harmful.

No, the worst thing that can happen is nothing.

Right.

I have a colleague who was telling me about EMDR at least 15 years ago and I kind of brushed it off and then finally I said, okay, I'll try this, and I went to the training and sat as the client and as the therapist within the training and I was very impacted by the results. The

issue I was seeing— you saw a result in your life and that's what led you to become an EMDR therapist. I'm sorry, I interrupted you. You said the issue?

Well, the issue that I was dealing with had to do with my boss and I was having a hard time at that time with my boss and it was nerve-wracking. I didn't want to go into work because it was so bad, but through the process of EMDR, I was able to untangle whatever the issues were with my boss and not that it went away, not that There weren't issues when I went back to work on Monday. It's just there were fewer issues and it was not as difficult for me to work with her. I was kind of amazed by that.

Wow, that's so good to know. So if you're experiencing trauma, if you've listened to this and you're thinking maybe that's me, like I said, seek out therapy and maybe think about EMDR as an option. A lot of people have heard it thrown out. I've heard it thrown out. I've researched it a little bit obviously. As a therapist, I probably know more than your Regular person, non-therapist, but I don't specialize in it at all, but I wanted to have you on, Wynne, so that you could really explain this to my audience. So thank you.

Oh, you're very welcome and like you were saying a couple of times, it's really important to seek out therapy, someone who's objective about the issues you're going through with EMDR or not, either way.

Right. So do you have any other last piece of advice and maybe even some do-it-yourself advice for someone who might be going through A little bit of trauma?

I just really think that it's important to embrace whatever those feelings are, even the tough feelings. And while you're doing that, don't do it alone. If you have friends you can talk to, reach out to them. Perhaps have an accountability partner, someone who can help you to realize that you're going through something tough, but you're also making new memories at the same time. You're showing yourself that you are still important, you're still yourself. It's just that the situation is different without that person you loved or because you've gone through something that has been really, really difficult for you. So reaching out is don't isolate. Reconnect with people as much as possible.

And how can someone find an EMDR therapist?

There are a couple of ways. One is through an organization called EMDRIA, which is emdria.org, I believe it is, and you can find therapists that are have sliding scales. Some of them are interns, so they're a little less expensive. Also, and you may have mentioned this on some of your other shows, a website called psychologytoday.com where you can filter through for therapists in your area for the type of therapy they do and specialties, and EMDR is one of the specialties you can filter for.

Awesome. And so how does someone find you?

Well, thank you for asking that. I have a website. It's my name, winhelms.com.

And we'll link that in the show notes.

Okay. Thank you. Yes. So you can contact me through that website and I'll be happy to talk with you.

Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom about EMDR. I think that was really helpful. I've learned today.

Very good.

Okay. Take care.

You too. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the Dr. Zoe Show. If you recognize that you've experienced some trauma in your life, You can connect with Nguyen by checking out her contact information in the show notes, and you could start some work with her, or she could refer you to someone with whom you can start. So thank you for listening to the Dr. Zoe Show. New shows go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And if you are listening before Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving. If you're listening after Thanksgiving, I hope you enjoyed your time with friends and family. Have a super week.

You've been listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, redefining your superwoman with your host, Dr. Zoe Shaw. Don't forget to sign up for her monthly newsletters to get encouragement, tips, and skills for keeping your mind in the superwoman game. Connect with her now at www.drzoeshaw.com. Tell your friends. And subscribe to her podcast on iTunes. Join us next time for another edition of The Dr. Zoe Show.