EMDR to Heal painful childhood memories and for anxiety treatment
by George Hartwell M.Sc, registered psychotherapist and Christian counselor
To schedule a session with George phone or text (416) 939-0544
Eye Movement is Be Able To Heal Our Traumas, reduce anxiety and stress
Based on a TED talk by Tricia Walsh leading us to look at EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) as a resource for healing our painful childhood memories and for anxiety therapy.
Connected with our painful childhood memories there are core beliefs such as:
Tricia Walsh sought therapy for her anxiety but it did not provide help soon enough for her and as she head into her oral exams her anxiety became intolerable. So she asked her therapist if there was another way and she discovered a new therapy - EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
Within four EMDR sessions she found that as her painful childhood memories were processed by EMDR that her anxiety was disappearing. She said: “I was experiencing powerful insights that I had never experienced before. I was healing rapidly.”
Tricia was so impressed that she felt like you do when you see something so beautiful that it leaves you speechless.
How EMDR came to exist. Dr. Francine Shapiro discovered EMDR when she was battling cancer. She was on a walk and she observed that her disturbing thoughts were disappearing as her eyes were rapidly moving back and forth from left to right.
So she came up with a theory that bilateral eye movement would allows memories to be seen in new and less distressful ways. She tested it and then researched it and found out it was very effective in dealing with people with trauma and PTSD.
Further research found that bilateral eye movement resembled the rapid eye movement in REM sleep and triggers the same processing. We know that people deprived of one nights REM sleep do not remember things that wanted to learn from the day before. We also know that people deprived of 3 nights REM sleep begin to lose their sanity.
That is because during REM sleep - our dream time - we process information and consolidate our memories. It has been found that during REM sleep we process our daily events, including traumatic ones, and this processing gives us emotional balance as well as enabling us to learn.
EMDR - bilateral eye movements while awake - also appears to activate the same processing of information as occurs in sleep. Information, especially any with personal and emotional significance, is processed, analyzed and desensitized from anxiety before consolidating into our permanent memory.
Peak Psychotherapy for couples makes systematic use of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to:
Key thought: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) - a resource for healing painful childhood memories and for reducing severe anxiety - can be used effectively in marriage counselling.
I have been studying and working with EMDR for a year with good response and I am in the midst of professional training at the moment (June 2019)
Based on a TED talk by Tricia Walsh leading us to look at EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) as a resource for healing our painful childhood memories and for anxiety therapy.
Connected with our painful childhood memories there are core beliefs such as:
- there is something wrong with me,
- I am not good enough,
- I am not safe.
Tricia Walsh sought therapy for her anxiety but it did not provide help soon enough for her and as she head into her oral exams her anxiety became intolerable. So she asked her therapist if there was another way and she discovered a new therapy - EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
Within four EMDR sessions she found that as her painful childhood memories were processed by EMDR that her anxiety was disappearing. She said: “I was experiencing powerful insights that I had never experienced before. I was healing rapidly.”
Tricia was so impressed that she felt like you do when you see something so beautiful that it leaves you speechless.
How EMDR came to exist. Dr. Francine Shapiro discovered EMDR when she was battling cancer. She was on a walk and she observed that her disturbing thoughts were disappearing as her eyes were rapidly moving back and forth from left to right.
So she came up with a theory that bilateral eye movement would allows memories to be seen in new and less distressful ways. She tested it and then researched it and found out it was very effective in dealing with people with trauma and PTSD.
Further research found that bilateral eye movement resembled the rapid eye movement in REM sleep and triggers the same processing. We know that people deprived of one nights REM sleep do not remember things that wanted to learn from the day before. We also know that people deprived of 3 nights REM sleep begin to lose their sanity.
That is because during REM sleep - our dream time - we process information and consolidate our memories. It has been found that during REM sleep we process our daily events, including traumatic ones, and this processing gives us emotional balance as well as enabling us to learn.
EMDR - bilateral eye movements while awake - also appears to activate the same processing of information as occurs in sleep. Information, especially any with personal and emotional significance, is processed, analyzed and desensitized from anxiety before consolidating into our permanent memory.
Peak Psychotherapy for couples makes systematic use of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to:
- The Peak Psychotherapy model is a thorough systematic emotional healing program
- Proven effective to deal with a couple's personal trigger points,
- Can bring healing to to our own personal blocks to intimacy,
- to deal with core belief issues and relationship traumas
Key thought: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) - a resource for healing painful childhood memories and for reducing severe anxiety - can be used effectively in marriage counselling.
I have been studying and working with EMDR for a year with good response and I am in the midst of professional training at the moment (June 2019)