Podcast Episode 32: What Is EMDR?
Introduction:
Thanks for clicking on Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling. I’m Curtis Smith and I invite you to subscribe to our podcast and to like and share it as well. I hope you enjoy today’s episode.
Podcast #32:
Curtis: Hi, everyone and welcome to Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling. I’m your host Curtis Smith. Today, joining us, is Grant Anderson. He is a Clinical Manager for Crosswinds Counseling, and one of the great therapists here. Grant, thanks for being with us.
Grant: Thank you.
Curtis: We’re talking about a hot topic in the world of therapy, EMDR.
Grant: Yes.
Curtis: What is EMDR?
Grant: So EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing.
Curtis: Okay.
Grant: It kind of started more in the late 80s, but really it’s using a rapid set of eye movements to help kind of trick the brain into kind of a dual stimulation or dual attention while processing through traumatic memories or traumatic experiences. So, we know that our brain takes on experiences and memories and sometimes integrates unhealthy or negative belief systems.
Curtis: Yeah.
Grant: And so, we call that trauma or trauma experiences that, for example, if someone says, ‘I know I’m worthy, but I don’t always feel worthy.’ It’s helping them begin to say, well what’s going on with that memory that helped you believe that – ‘I’m not worthy.’ And so it’s taking the present moment, helping them to do a dual attention, which is the eye movement and reprocess that whole experience with an adaptive belief of, ‘I am worthy.’ And so, really, we see the same thing when we sleep. So, we have kind of a back and forth between regular sleep and REM sleep. Kind of that rapid eye movement kind of helps us do the same thing. We’re just doing this awake, and we’re doing this in full control basically.
Curtis: So, if it started in the 80s, has it caught on now? Or is it just gaining steam? Or is it come back in popularity because it does seem like it’s, I don’t know what other word to say, but ‘popular’? It does seem like it’s very popular right now in the therapy setting.
Grant: Yeah, so it takes a lot of time to get empirically supported and enough evidence, enough research studies show that it’s not just hypnosis, because it’s very different than hypnosis. And it works very differently, and it has empirically supported evidence that it is impactful as much as a CBT or other more popular theories out there as well.
Curtis: Okay, is it something that a client would ever come in and say, ‘Hey, I I think EMDR might help me,’ or is it something that as a therapist, you’re working with them and you start to say, ‘Here’s a thought. Why don’t we try some EMDR?’
Grant: I think it happens both ways. Some come in knowing they want to try, or they’ve heard about EMDR from friends, or they’ve done research and they want to know more about it and see if they’re a good fit for it. And some just come in recognizing that they have trauma they want to work with, and it’s presented as an opportunity that they can look at it from an EMDR perspective.
Curtis: Okay, so if you’re meeting with a client who hasn’t brought it to your attention, or let’s actually start with one who has – so somebody comes in. They say they’ve heard about it. They want to dive into it. Do you automatically embrace that? Is it right for everybody, or do you say, ‘Well, let’s talk about that why do you want to try it? And let’s see if it is a good fit.’ Or is it something that is helpful to everybody?
Grant: There’s absolutely a conversation that happens about it. Kind of you know, kind of let’s talk about the expectations. What is some of the values. You don’t have to always share everything about a traumatic experience because it’s utilizing what’s called neuroplasticity. So, the brain’s changing over time, and the neurons are firing, and it’s rewiring those pieces. It’s taking advantage of that piece to say let’s walk through that in a in a dual stimulation and the brain is actually the one that begins to bring in the adaptive belief, and so because of that, there’s brief periods of back and forth – of the bilateral stimulation and then coming back and just talking about that experience, and because of that a client can choose to do it because they don’t have to necessarily share all of the traumatic pieces with a therapist. And that could be a value.
Curtis: So, somebody comes in. They want to do it. You’re going to have a conversation to decide whether it is the right thing to do in therapy.
Grant: Right.
Curtis: And then obviously you could be in a normal therapy setting and decide on your own, as the counselor, hey this might be something that is good for you. I assume does it happen more often that way. I assume fewer people come in with this preconceived notion that EMDR is something that’s going to help them.
Grant: I’ve noticed it’s happening more than I’ve realized it would. People coming have done the research, and I’ve had people who’ve come in and I’ve presented EMDR, and I’ve presented other approaches – I mean they’ve chosen not to do EMDR, and they chose other approaches. So, it’s not that everyone is necessarily gravitating towards EMDR, but it’s becoming more and more I think commonplace. And more people recognizing that it works, and it’s – there’s value to it.
Curtis: All right, so tell us what would then happen – so, let’s say I’m a client. I come in and either I say, ‘I think this is something I want to try.’ Or after meeting with me, you think this is something that would help me, what would we start to do? What does it look like?
Grant: So, like with any therapy there’s still going to be a therapeutic alliance being built. Relational connection. We’re going to talk about what we call ‘resourcing.’ In that sense, we’re going to be building on a toolkit of emotional regulation skills. Because we are activating those memories it’s easy to get overwhelmed or activated in the session, and so we [are] providing tools to help calm, to regulate your emotions. We do what’s called tapping in or body scanning with it to kind of help process what it’s going to feel like when we eventually get to what we call ‘target sequencing.’ We’re going to move into a phase where we’re recognizing what are the negative core beliefs that have impacted your belief systems or your mental health. And then we’re looking at the patterns of memories that are associated with that negative core belief. So, ‘I’m not safe,’ um, ‘I’m vulnerable.’ Things like that. ‘I’m not worthy,’ as we mentioned before, can all be negative core beliefs and then we’re identifying the adaptive belief, ‘I can control what I can control.’ ‘I am worthy.’ And so, then we’re moving into once we’ve mapped out those memories, we’re going to activate those memories. We’re going to go into a bilateral stimulation where we’re moving your eye movements back and forth, and then we’re going to do that, brief moments. And then we’re going to pull you out, ask what you’re kind of – what the experience is, what you’re thinking of. Put you back into that, and so it’s alternating between, going through the reprocessing, pull you – pulling you out, kind of processing what’s going on, and then putting you back in it. Over and over and over. So, the more complex the trauma, it can take multiple sessions to kind of get through some of the negative core beliefs depending on the level of what the memory is.
Curtis: Wow. Really fascinating. You’ve got a device here that you’re going to show us how. What is this device? How does it play a role in EMDR?
Grant: Yeah, so as I kind of mentioned there’s kind of that bilateral stimulation. And so, with EMDR we kind of talk about it by eye movement. So, kind of using your eyes to go – so a therapist will kind of go back and forth, and the eyes of the client will move back and forth as the stimulation. We have also found that there’s a value in what we call ‘tappers,’ and so these are just connected to a device that controls it. And these will vibrate or buzz in a sense, back and forth. So, there’s one for the right hand, one for the left hand, and it will act as the dual attention or the distraction kind of thing to kind of keep the brain moving. While you’re thinking through the memory. Kind of – very similar to like chewing gum and walking, or doing things that we don’t think about what we’re doing while we’re doing them. Just because the brain is on autopilot in a sense.
Curtis: Right. So rather than just saying to somebody, ‘move your eyes back and forth quickly.’ Like this helps them to physically do that.
Grant: Yeah. And so, the reason I I find these valuable is because for some clients to kind of go into a memory and activate it if it’s not readily there activated. It’s easier to close their eyes, and so I find that the tappers – they can kind of close their eyes, get into the memory, and think through it and kind of help the process begin. For the EMDR, with the eye movement, they keeping their eyes open because they’re focusing on the hand movements going back and forth through the eyes. So that’s why I’ve kind of gravitated more towards the tappers because I’ve found a value more in being able to choose for the client if they’d like to keep their eyes open or keep their eyes closed.
Curtis: Okay, I assume that EMDR is like any form of therapy. It might not be a great fit for everybody. Are – do you ever get into it and realize this is not getting me where we need to go. It’s not giving me the desired outcome and this probably isn’t the best fit, and you move on? Or is it always an effective tool?
Grant: So, I can speak personally, yeah, that I I’ve definitely started the process. Gotten through part of it, and then I’ve kind of noticed how the client is responding to the reprocessing, kind of reprocessing, engaging and maybe we get through a memory or an adaptive belief that they’re taking on, and get the sense that we want to go another direction for another memory that they want to pull into, or another negative core belief. So sometimes clients will begin it. They’ll kind of work through it a little bit, and then we kind of make a decision together, of maybe we’ll look at more of a trauma-focused cognitive behavioral approach moving forward. Something like that.
Curtis: Interesting. What else should we know about this Grant? Because you said it’s been around since the 80s. but it’s really gaining some steam now. For those of us who don’t live in the counseling world, it might be foreign. Is there anything else we should know about EMDR? [Tell us what] people should know about it if they’re considering either starting counseling, or they’re with a therapist right now and thinking, ‘Oh, this might be a good tool for me?’
Grant: Yeah, there’s a lot of information out there about it. I encourage you to kind of look into it, and find someone who is trained – not just someone who has read a book on EMDR. Because, there’s a value obviously, and an importance to being trained in the approach.
Curtis: Right.
Grant: And just know that it’s not hypnosis. It’s different than that, and although it may seem weird at first, because you’re looking at a dual processing, or dual attention, and they call it bilateral, talk through a – talk to your therapist about it. See what they know about it – kind of help them process. Once you kind of get some more information, and kind of talk about why it works and how it works, there’s a lot more comfort level that comes with the EMDR.
Curtis: Well, Grant, thanks for sharing so much about it today. Crosswinds Counseling is full of counselors who use evidence-based practices, who are licensed, who have degrees, who are experts in their field, and this is another example of how they use those practices to help people. So, Grant, thank you so much for educating us today on EMDR. Thank you for joining us on Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling. We’ll see you next time.
Outro:
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