So, what’s the deal with EMDR? 🤔

So when you're finished processing a memory, some people feel really, really great. They feel strong, they feel confident, they feel relaxed, they feel empowered. Other people just feeling neutral is that's as good as it's going to get. And they will never feel good about something that happened or didn't happen. They just go for neutrality. And so really I wanted to make these videos is to emphasize that EMDR is eight phases. And if you have a clinician who's like jumping into just the unpacking part is maybe pause, learn a little bit more about EMDR and see if you can get somebody that may do all eight phases, because you'll get better results that way. And also remember that it takes time and every process is individualized. You can learn more about EMDR by going to emdria.org the last three phases, phases 6, 7, and 8 are body scan closure and reevaluation. And this is where we'll really look into the body and just make sure that you feel that sense of peace, that sense of distance, that sense of release. Whatever it is that you're working towards with your clinician is, even if sometimes logically we feel like, okay, I'm over that, I've moved past it. We, we always want to check in with the body and make sure that the body agrees. And so once you've scanned the body, once you've gotten your units of distress down to zero, we really want to make sure that then we install your desired state. You get to create what you want to feel and start programming, repatterning that into the body, re patterning that into your nervous system. And so you'll do some bilateral stimulation for that. And it should feel really good and it should feel really empowering. EMDR stages three and four are assessment and desensitization. And that's where EMDR gets most of its reputation from, is that process where your clinician may begin using bilateral stimulation, which is where you either look left and right with your eyes, maybe they'll use an audio clicker for your ears, or maybe you'll hold a hand buzzer. There are different ways to do this, but that's when you start actually going into the memories, unpacking. And one really interesting thing about this part is that the memories don't necessarily have to be logical or something that you can think about or talk about or see. For some people, it could be very biological, it could be very somatic. So, for example, maybe you feel racing in your heart every time you're in the car, but it doesn't feel logical. EMDR could be really helpful for that. So the first two phases of EMDR are history taking and preparation. And so that's where the clinician is going to learn all about your history, learn about your past, learn about your current experiences. And this history taking process could take multiple visits. It takes as long as you need. And so if you're coming in for really complex trauma or something that happened again and again or was really debilitating, it will take longer to take your history as opposed to if it was just a single incident that occurred one time. And then the preparation phase for some people could take days. Other people, it could take weeks or years. The preparation phase is all about helping you be ready to do the unpacking, to do the processing. Preparation may involve doing talk therapy, it may involve seeing a doctor, it may involve doing grounding exercises. Is it's really different for everybody. Hi there, friends. Hey, let's talk about EMDR real quick. One of the biggest misconceptions that I hear about EMDR is that it's all the unpacking part, it's all the difficult reprocessing of all traumas part. And that is one of eight parts of emdr. There are seven other parts of it. And so when you have an EMDR trained clinician, you want to make sure that the person that you're working with is trained to take you through all eight phases. And so we'll talk in just the next story here what those phases are to make sure that you're in good hands.