When something traumatic happens to you, sometimes it stays in your mind, vivid as the day it happened years later. It can manifest in dreams and reality, making life more difficult. Moving forward with trauma, anxiety, or depression can seem nearly impossible for some people. There’s hope, though. As more studies confirm its effectiveness, EMDR therapy has become a more accepted and used technique for those struggling with trauma, depression, or anxiety.
What is EMDR therapy?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, but that’s a mouthful so it’s referred to as EMDR therapy. It’s a psychotherapy that allows a person to rework through a disruptive life experience and alleviate the distress associated with it. Many studies have shown it to be extremely successful with not just single-trauma victims, but multi-trauma victims.
How does it work?
It’s fair to ask how moving your eyes back and forth can ease anxiety, depression, and trauma, but the truth is that researchers are still searching for a full explanation.
Some outcomes in studies have suggested that the eye movement mimics that of REM sleep, allowing the brain to fully process negative memories instead of having them stuck on repeat in the person’s mind. Though the true understanding is unknown, the evidence for the effectiveness of EMDR therapy is there in hard research. It’s hard to ignore something that can be so beneficial to so many suffering people.
Solstice RTC is here to help
EMDR allows us to get past the verbal part of the traumatic memory and touch on imagery, body sensation, emotion, and negative core belief systems. Without touching on these components of Trauma, it is difficult to redirect the acting out behavior that comes in response to a traumatic event. It is amazing to witness the girls and assigned female at birth at Solstice move past memories that have become “stuck” and into a “functioning” memory. Trauma no longer has to control their lives and they feel empowered to view their lives differently. – Jaime Palmer, MSW, LCSW, Clinical Director and Primary Therapist at Solstice RTC
Solstice RTC is a residential treatment center for struggling young women, ages 14-18. Our program is engineered to help our girls and assigned female at birth work through issues, such as anxiety, depression, or trauma. We utilize many different therapeutic techniques, including EMDR therapy, to create a comprehensive treatment for each individual in our program.
For more information about Solstice RTC, please call (866) 278-3345 today!
